


We're in this Together

by Karone



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Family, Drama, F/M, Friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 40,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21702553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karone/pseuds/Karone
Summary: Loki has been returned to Asgard, and New York is recovering from being ground zero in a battle to save Earth from alien invaders. As the Avengers have become a team, things have changed between Clint & Natasha. Are they ready for unexpected twists in their relationship? Will an enemy from Hawkeye's past destroy their chance for happiness? Hard to summarize without revealing big plot twists! The story has evolved so much: expect some action/suspense, mild torture, romance, & lots of team friendship. I guess this is AU now as it was written after The Avengers and pays no regard to later movies. Please let me know what you think!
Relationships: Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Comments: 1
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a very old story I started right after The Avengers came out. I liked the slight chemistry between Clint and Natasha and wanted to play with that. I had also read a few stories that seemed to push them into a serious relationship, but I felt like it should be more natural and subtle for them at first. I decided only a few major events happening at just the right time could change their lives and their relationship forever. Here's what I came up with...
> 
> (I'll add a new chapter every few days until I get to the last one, chapter 17, which I'm still working on.)

It was still early when Clint, having finished with his usual morning training and shower, wandered into the kitchen to see if anyone else was awake. The newly renovated Avengers Tower had a separate, customized floor for each team member, which included a private kitchenette, but everyone seemed to spend a lot of time on the spacious level Tony called the ‘team floor,’ set aside as a sort of common area, complete with an open-concept kitchen and entertainment/lounge area. Thor was already sitting at the counter digging into a plate full of Pop Tarts (what looked to be the contents of an entire box). Clint hadn’t seen him for a few days and had been starting to think the Asgardian had returned to his own realm.

“Good morning, Agent Barton,” the god greeted. He wasn’t in full armor but still looked out of place wearing his Asgardian clothes in a modern kitchen.

“Hey, Thor,” Clint offered with a smile as he went to the refrigerator to retrieve a carton of eggs. He had finally become familiar enough with the rest of the team for them to call him by his first name, but the god was still stubbornly formal. At least Clint knew that in Thor’s case it was a cultural custom and did not reflect on what he thought of the SHIELD agent who had once fought alongside Loki. In fact, aside from the Black Widow and Captain America, who had willingly brought Hawkeye as an ally into what was now commonly called The Incident, Thor had been the first to assure Clint that he did not blame him for his actions while under his brother’s spell. Clint cracked a few eggs into a bowl. “I thought maybe you’d gone home.”

“No.” Thor shook his head sadly. “It would seem that my father is still… displeased… that I asked to return to Midgard.”

“He didn’t _forbid_ your return to Earth.”

“No, but now I am not welcome home… not until I learn to put my duty to my own realm before my love of this one. All Asgardians are, at the moment, forbidden to even speak with me.”

“The silent treatment, huh? Harsh. But I’m sure Odin will come around eventually.”

Thor looked slightly confused. “I do not believe he will be visiting Midgard anytime soon.”

“He means your dad will see things your way soon enough,” a new voice spoke up from the doorway. Clint and Thor turned to see Tony Stark striding into the room. “Anyway, don’t worry about it, big guy. We like having you around.”

Barton held up the bowl of eggs he was beating, silently offering some to the new arrival. Stark nodded and started to toast some bread while the archer added a few more eggs to his bowl.

“Have either of you seen Natasha?” Clint asked casually.

“You mean you didn’t see her last night?” Tony jested. He shrugged off Clint’s glare. “Hey, man, I’m not the only one who thinks you two are, you know, _an item_.” Tony raised his eyebrows suggestively as he said the last few words.

“Well, just for the record, we’re not.” Tony looked unconvinced, but Clint ignored him. “I was just going to ask if she wanted to back me up on a mission.”

“Back you up on a mission? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“Tony!” Clint groaned. Exasperated, he shook his head and rolled his eyes. Sure he and Natasha had gotten closer since the whole incident with Loki, but the rest of the team had no business knowing how close. Clint knew Nat wasn’t ready for that.

“Okay, sorry.” The billionaire threw his hands up in the air apologetically, but he was still grinning. Clint decided that no one smiling that much was ever truly sorry. Thor just laughed.

Another voice came from the door now. “Where’s Fury sending you this time?” Natasha asked coolly as she strolled into the room. Clint winced as he considered how much of the previous conversation she may have overheard – probably all of it.

“Lagos. Something about a weapons stash above and beyond the usual African warlord’s tech. Shouldn’t be a big deal. I pick off the guards at the warehouse, move in with some backup, confiscate the arsenal, and try to bring back one of the higher-ups for questioning.”

“Doesn’t sound like you need me for something like that.” Natasha snatched a piece of toast Tony had just buttered and sat beside Thor as she nibbled on it. A bit hurt by her refusal, Clint opened his mouth as if to reply but closed it again, instead turning to the stove to cook his eggs.

To Barton’s surprise, it was Stark who piped up next. “I’ll go.”

Clint glanced sideways at him. “What?”

“I said I’ll go. Fury didn’t expect you to ask me, did he?” Clint shook his head. “Did he happen to mention what kind of weapons those goons in Lagos got their hands on?”

“I don’t think it’s Stark Industries, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Right. Because Fury would be sure to mention if it was. Because Fury tells us _everything_.” Tony’s voice dripped with cynicism. “You know, I’ve tried to track down all the Stark tech that was sold out of the Middle East, and it’s funny… but I think that some made its way to western Africa a while back…”

Clint sighed and glanced over his shoulder at Natasha before answering Stark, as if hoping for something more from the Black Widow. “Fine. You can come. But we’re leaving early tomorrow. If you’re not on the helipad at 5 AM sharp, I’m going without you.”

Natasha returned to her own floor immediately after she finished her toast, and Clint didn’t see her for the rest of the day, though he stopped by her private gym for a while to see if she wanted to spar _and_ hung out in the common kitchen long before and after both lunch and dinner in case she came to eat with the others. Basically, he did everything to find her _except_ to actually show up at her bedroom door and knock. Because that would seem desperate.

* * *

It was the next morning, probably about 4:30, when she knew he’d already be up and prepping for his mission, that Natasha showed up at Clint’s door. He knew it was her just by the way she knocked. He opened the door halfway, and she could see he was only half dressed, standing bare-chested before her.

“Change your mind about the mission?” he asked frostily.

His question caught her off-guard. “No, I just…” Why had she come, again? “I didn’t want you to think…”

“I’m not supposed to take it personally that you’re not tagging along. Fine. That’s not why I’m upset, and you know it.”

Nat looked down at her hands, studying her fingernails just to keep from looking him in the eye. “It’s not like I’ve been trying to avoid you.” Now she was flat-out lying to him, which is something she didn’t enjoy doing.

“It’s just coincidence that you’ve barely said two words to me in the last few days?”

“Look, Clint.” Now Natasha met his gaze, but her face would not betray the emotion she was feeling. How could she talk to him now? She needed the right time, and it hadn’t come. “I just think it’s good for you to go on a mission with one of the other Avengers. You spend enough time with me, but it’s not me you have to impress. We’re already partners and friends, right?”

Clint shrugged and turned back into his room, slipping into his vest and fastening the armor. His best bow and quiver were already laid out on the bed. Natasha took just one step inside the door, waited for him to say something, anything.

“What’s up, Nat?” he said, looking at her again.

“It’s just… I think we need to talk,” was all she could manage.

“About us?” After a moment, she nodded slightly. “So your solution is to _not_ talk to me for a while, huh?” She said nothing. Deep down, Clint knew he was being too hard on her. She had many talents, but talking about her feelings wasn’t one of them. “Let’s talk when I get back,” he continued. “If I wait until Tony and I come back, will you finally know what you want to say?”

She didn’t look overly pleased with this proposition, but she nodded anyway. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I think I’ll have my thoughts sorted out by then.”

He nodded without looking at her, instead slinging his bow and quiver over his shoulder. “I’m going to hit the shooting range before I go,” he said. He followed her out his bedroom door, pausing to close it behind him, and walked her to the elevator. Here he stopped and pushed the button to send her back to her own floor.

“I’ll talk to you in a few days, then,” Natasha offered, stepping onto the elevator. “Don’t be late,” she called as the doors closed.


	2. Chapter 2

The flight to Africa didn’t feel all that long, especially with Tony Stark along for the ride, banishing any chance of long awkward silences. Clint let him do most of the talking but made sure to nod or offer his own opinion when it was expected. The topic of conversation started with the shady nature of SHIELD and of Director Fury—Clint was glad to get away from that touchy subject as quickly as possible—and moved quickly to all the times the Avengers had saved the day so far. Then Tony was practically gushing about how the amazing Pepper Potts had put up with him for all these years, which Clint thought was incredibly sweet, though he knew Tony was really just trying to get him to talk about his own relationship.

Then, sure enough, they were discussing the enigmatic Natasha Romanoff. He had known the focus would shift back to this sooner or later after Tony had pursued the matter so enthusiastically the day before. “Why not admit to the chemistry everyone else sees between you already? You spy types just have to be secretive about everything! So you’re in a relationship. What’s the big deal?”

Tony had a point. What _was_ the big deal? “It’s really not what you think,” Clint found himself insisting defensively.

“Come on, I’ve seen the way you look at her. Not unlike the way I look at Pepper.”

“Okay, well maybe it’s like that for me… but not for her.” Clint frowned. “Am I really that transparent?”

Stark slapped a mollifying hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Sorry, buddy, but when it comes to her, you really are. Don’t worry though – you haven’t _completely_ lost your touch. In all other matters, it’s very difficult to get a read on what you’re thinking,” Tony offered with a smirk. He paused for a moment in mock contemplation. “So… are you trying to tell me the feeling isn’t mutual? Because I’m pretty sure it is. She’s not as obvious about it as you are, but I don’t think I’m imagining the way she lights up a bit whenever she sees you.”

Clint sighed. “We’ve been partners and friends for years,” he admitted, “and maybe we both feel something more. But while I’m okay with being in a real relationship, I don’t think she’s ready for that. Natasha has spent her whole life hiding her emotions. She thinks they make you weak—love most of all. But, I don’t know… sometimes I feel like she might make an exception for me, and then a day later she’s back to her usual self. I just don’t understand her.”

“Agent Barton,” Tony said sagely, “you will never understand the way that woman thinks. No man ever truly knows what goes on in the mind of a woman.”

* * *

Natasha paused at the open door to Stark’s living room, making sure that Pepper was alone. Then she rapped gently on the doorframe to announce her presence. “Pepper? Are you busy? Is this a bad time?”

The other red-head looked up from the magazine she was paging through and smiled. “Natasha! Not at all. Come on in.”

Nat took a seat on the couch next to her friend. It was still strange for her to think of Pepper as a friend—she’d never really had a girl friend before—but they had grown rather close in recent months. “What’s up?” Pepper asked. “Guy trouble?”

“In a manner of speaking,” Natasha replied vaguely. “How’d you guess?”

“Well, Tony might have mentioned that he was picking up on some kind of… rift between you and Clint.”

“It’s all me, I’m afraid. I’ve sort of been avoiding him for the past few days. He’s just a little hurt, I suppose, because he doesn’t understand why.”

“He’s a man, Natasha. Men don’t pick up too well on subtle hints. He isn’t going to understand the situation between you two unless you give him a straight-forward explanation.”

“I’m not sure _I_ even know what’s going on between us.”

* * *

“It’s not like we’re _dating_ or anything,” Clint insisted.

“Hmm, no… you don’t exactly go on dates.”

“Unless a sniper mission counts.”

“Uh, I’m gonna say no. Unless… do you ever go out together after a mission?”

“Like for shawarma?” Clint laughed. “Yeah, I guess if we’re hungry after a mission sometimes we stop for a bite to eat.” He paused thoughtfully, then added, “But we usually don’t talk very much.”

Tony pursed his lips. “Not quite a date, then. But after that, when you go back to the helicarrier or the tower, do you walk her to her door? Maybe she sometimes invites you in to talk or something? And then maybe… you end up spending the night?”

By the time Stark had even begun to ask the last question, his friend had turned slightly red. Barton mentally kicked himself. Natasha wouldn’t be blushing like a school girl right now—she’d be holding Tony Stark in a headlock and threatening to break both his arms. Clint, on the other hand, had just blown it. He buried his face in his hands.

“Ha!” Tony cried triumphantly. “I knew it! I _knew_ you two were sleeping together.”

“I wouldn’t put it that way,” Clint groaned through his fingers. “You make it sound like something that happens a lot, but it’s really more like the occasional—” He groaned again. “If Natasha finds out that I let it slip, she’ll kill me. After she kills you.”

“How’s she going to find out?”

“Like you’re not going to run around the tower when we get home, announcing to everyone that you were right?”

“Nah, they don’t care.” Tony conceded. “Bruce would rather avoid conflict. Steve, Thor, and Pepper all say it’s none of our business.”

“Which is true.”

“I say again—what’s the big deal? Everyone else already knows.”

“No, everyone _suspects_. Not the same thing.”

“Our suspicions had to be confirmed sooner or later.” Clint said nothing, so Tony moved on. “So if you’re not dating, what are you? Friends with benefits?”

Clint answered quietly this time, his voice almost pained. “I’d like to think it’s more than that.”

“So when we get home, you should give Natasha an ultimatum. Tell her you’re an official couple or just friends, none if this somewhere-in-between crap.”

* * *

“No matter what happens, things are going to be different when he gets back,” Natasha said, pulling her feet up onto the couch and hugging a throw pillow against her chest. “I’m going to tell him it’s time for us to be a real couple.”

“That’s a big step for you,” Pepper said encouragingly. “I think he’ll be proud.”

“Yeah, but I think that’s the biggest step I’m ready to take right now. I’ve always been afraid of commitment. And right now—and, Pepper, this never leaves this room—I’m terrified.”

“Well, you need to decide what you want to do and how much you’re going to tell him. I can’t decide for you. But remember that this isn’t just about you anymore. You _both_ deserve to be happy.” Her voice took on a slightly pleading tone. “Don’t break his heart, Nat.”

Natasha buried her face in the pillow and sighed. _What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him_ , she reminded herself.

* * *

Clint had never been so relieved to hear the alarm that told him they had nearly arrived at their destination. His heart-to-heart with Tony was immediately over as he went into business mode. He handed Tony the file on their mission, pointing out the satellite photo of the warehouse in question, reminding him of all of the intelligence SHIELD had received about it.

Mere minutes after landing the quinjet in an abandoned junkyard at the edge of town, Hawkeye was scaling the building across the street from the warehouse. Once he was in position, he easily dispatched the two guards outside the front entrance while Iron Man circled the building and took out the one patrolling around the back.

“I’m gonna blow the door,” Barton told Stark. “Get in there while they’re still dazed; I’ll be right behind you.”

Releasing an arrow, the archer smiled a little as he pushed a button on his bow and triggered a sizable explosion. Tony swooped through the now wide-open door, and Clint quickly rappelled down to street level while the smoke provided some cover. He was almost to the door, skirting the flaming rubble while reloading his bow, when Tony’s voice called through his earpiece. “Hawkeye, stay out of here. Get back!”

“What is it?” Barton asked, suddenly concerned. What could have gone wrong already?

“Just a handful of guards, huh?” Tony paused, apparently to fire his repulsors at an approaching foe. “Either your intel was way wrong or these guys knew we were coming because they’re everywhere. I think we need to retreat and rethink this whole mission.”

There was no point in turning back now, only a few steps outside the door. Clint could already see the bluish-white glow of Iron Man’s repulsor blasts through the thinning smoke. He moved into the dark building and fired his readied arrow at the first opponent he saw. He swung the bow with all his might, sweeping several others off their feet, and deftly nocked another arrow. Tony had been right; there were men everywhere. Another wave of them was closing in on Iron Man. Clint felled two of them in as many seconds.

“You’re right,” Barton called. “Let’s move!” He backed toward the door as he loosed another arrow.

Tony lifted up into the air a few feet, ready to fly to freedom, and turned toward Hawkeye. “Look out!” he called. But it was too late. One of the thugs had struck the archer from behind with a nasty-looking club, and Tony’s friend dropped to the ground. He was just starting toward the door to rescue his fallen companion when something hit him from behind as well. The blow didn’t injure Iron Man, but threw him forward into the ground. Tony turned and fired his repulsors again at the nearest foe, but there were a dozen men on top of him already, pinning him down.

Every second felt like an eternity as Iron Man battled his way free of the mob, shouting profanities at his opponents all the while. “Hawkeye!” he called, flying straight up into the air and looking to where his friend had fallen. But Hawkeye was nowhere to be found. It seemed his unconscious form had been carried off in the brief moments that he had been down. “Clint!”


	3. Chapter 3

Stark turned a corner and only realized that he had completely circled the building because he found himself looking at that familiar star-spangled outfit again. Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, and Dr. Banner were still spread out in the warehouse searching empty rooms Tony had already searched and sifting through rubble that could tell them nothing. Hawkeye was gone without a trace, and there wasn’t even a weapons cache here to recover. It had all been a set-up.

Tony’s only consolation was that the rest of the team hadn’t seen the way he panicked when he realized that Clint was gone. He had immediately called SHIELD for backup and had fought the remaining attackers all by himself until they were all dead or unconscious or running away like cowards. After a hasty search of the warehouse, he had flown around the building and then circled the whole block before returning to tie up a few of his unconscious adversaries before they could wake up and run off. SHIELD might need them to shed some light on the incident. With any luck, they were already being interrogated on board the helicarrier.

Steve looked up and stepped toward Stark, worry etched into his features. “Tony, it’s been hours since we got here, and the trail has gone cold. I think it’s time we head back to the helicarrier. Besides you just took down all those guys by yourself. You should probably get some rest.”

“Rest?” Tony asked incredulously. “Clint’s been captured on my watch, and I’m supposed to go home and get some sleep?!”

“SHEILD has their best agents working on this. Teams are fanning out into the city. And they’re already trying to trace Barton with a half-dozen high-tech methods that I can’t begin to understand. But there is nothing more we can do here.”

“We have to find him,” Tony repeated for the hundredth time that day as if it had become his mantra. He looked behind Rogers to where Natasha Romanoff was now standing alone in the middle of the warehouse. Maybe he was just imagining it, but she looked much smaller and more fragile than usual, staring listlessly at the recurve bow in her hands.

Steve turned, followed Tony’s gaze. “She didn’t say a word the whole way here,” he sighed.

Tony pushed past the Captain and stopped a few yards away from Natasha. “We’ll find him,” he said. Her eyes met his in the fading light, and his heart sank. Her usual self-control had faltered for just a moment, and suddenly she looked so… lost. “I swear I won’t give up until we bring him home,” he promised. “I’ll stay here for as long as it takes.”

“No,” she said in a stronger voice than he expected as she regained her composure. “Rogers is right. There’s nothing more we can do here.”

“We aren’t giving up,” Banner chimed in from across the room. “We just need to regroup, step back and figure out what we’re missing. Like you said, this was a deliberate ambush. There’s more going on here than we realize.”

And so the team, minus one sorely missed archer, gathered at the door and made their way dejectedly toward their quinjet.

* * *

When Clint came to, he was instantly aware of two facts. One, he had an excruciating headache. Two, he couldn’t see anything. Clearing his throat, he found his voice to be in working order. “Tony?” he called into the darkness. No reply came, but as he strained to listen, Clint realized that he was hearing a low rumble, which was accompanied by steady vibrations beneath him. He was apparently lying on his side in the back of a moving vehicle. Also (and it seemed odd that he hadn’t noticed this sooner), his hands and feet were bound.

After the initial shock of seeing only black around him, he was relieved to find that he could now make out dim light shining through the crack between what must be doors near his feet. Clearly this was the back of a box truck, and the sun was still up because he couldn’t imagine it was already the next day. The whole truck lurched dangerously to one side and then leveled again. The road it was traveling along was very rough, if it was even a road at all. Clint was struck by the rather alarming realization that he was most likely being taken deep into the dense rainforest.

It wasn’t long, though it felt like hours, before the vehicle lurched to a halt. Clint could hear voices shouting somewhere outside, numerous men calling to each other in both English and in the local dialect, which he unfortunately did not understand. The English speakers were saying things like “We’ve got him.” and “Are you sure you weren’t followed?” and “Bring him this way.”

There was the sound of metal rubbing against metal as the back doors of the truck were unlocked and swung open. As Clint blinked against the sudden flood of light, someone took hold of his feet and hauled him toward the door. The rope around his ankles was cut before he was pulled to his feet. He was shoved forward roughly by a hand—no, the butt of a rifle—in the middle of his back, steered through the heavy door of a military bunker.

“The general has been looking forward to this,” someone behind him snarled. Clint already suspected who this general was, and it made his pulse quicken and his mind race to plot an escape. Because if he didn’t get out of here soon, he had a feeling he never would.

* * *

As soon as he was on board the helicarrier, which had moved into position just off the African coast, Tony forgot about rest and started researching the details of the fateful mission. The team spent the rest of the evening gathered in an unused computer lab, digging into all available intelligence about the mission, running various related searches within the SHIELD database and on the internet, looking up names and dates, surveying maps of the region.

Natasha spent a long time studying the militant anarchist who had supposedly stockpiled those non-existent weapons in Lagos. Tony was almost relieved to see that she had returned to her usual stoic self. He supposed it helped her to feel that she was doing something to find Barton. It helped all of them. “Joseph Oduamadi,” she said aloud. “I know I’ve heard that name before.”

Steve looked up from the maps he had been examining. “Heard it where?”

“I think Clint mentioned him once. Something to do with a mission from years ago.” This sent the team back to work, this time focusing their attention on the elusive African warlord and Barton’s earliest SHIELD missions.

It turned out that Oduamadi and SHIELD had been at each other’s throats for the last decade. The self-proclaimed general of the “Free Army of Africa” was determined to arm his rebel soldiers with the most powerful weapons he could get his hands on, and it was likely that he had bigger plans than just ruling the jungles of west and central Africa. So for years, SHIELD had consistently shut down as many of his arms deals as possible.

Unfortunately, the team found few other details, and they suspected that most of the information about Oduamadi was classified (beyond even Agent Romanoff’s clearance, apparently). They had hit a dead end with their best lead—at least until they could talk to Fury because Tony insisted he could get the Director to grant them access to the needed files.

The clock read 3 o’clock, and now that the excitement of the day’s events had passed, they were no longer able to hide how exhausted they were. Natasha fell asleep first, still sitting at a table, her folded arms acting as a pillow. Then Steve noticed Tony nodding off in front of his computer. The captain escorted Natasha to her quarters and directed Thor and Banner to make sure Stark went to bed, despite the fact that he was already back to insisting he wasn’t tired.

The next morning, JARVIS woke Tony to inform him that he had “an urgent call from Miss Potts.” Tony had sent her only a brief message the day before, telling her that he was alright but that the mission hadn’t gone as planned and he wouldn’t be home for a while.

“Tony, what happened?” she asked as soon as he answered his phone.

“Pepper, I really don’t want to talk about it,” he began, immediately recognizing that she wouldn’t accept that reply. “Basically, it was a set-up. We were ambushed. I’m fine,” he said before she could panic, “but they captured Clint. We don’t know where he is… or if he’s even…” He couldn’t bring himself to finish the sentence.

“Oh, God… Tony.” Pepper took a deep breath, letting what he had said sink in. “But you know he has to be alive. Who would capture someone just to kill him?”

“You’re right,” Tony said. “We’re still looking. But like I said last night, I think I’ll be staying here for the foreseeable future.”

“That’s alright. Do what you have to do,” Pepper assured him. “Tony?” She paused. He could tell that she wanted to say something else but wasn’t sure how to bring it up. “How’s Natasha?”

“Oh, she’s fine. I mean, as much as can be expected. Trust me—this isn’t the first time she’s had to rescue that partner of hers.”

“I know, Tony, but… well, just bring him home, okay?”

“We will. The Avengers don’t abandon one of their own.”

A threat from Stark to hack into the entire SHEILD database again was all it took for Director Fury to give the Avengers access to all related information, whether it was top secret or not. By that afternoon, they were back to work. None of them had spoken much in the past 24 hours; they were all focused on finding their missing friend.

“I’ve got something!” Bruce exclaimed not long into the search. The others turned to him, Tony and Natasha coming closer to peer over his shoulder at the computer screen. “Agent Barton had personal dealings with Oduamadi years ago, just like Natasha said. See? Clint was assigned to infiltrate his base back in ‘05.”

“What was the outcome?” Thor asked.

“The report’s a bit vague.” Banner grumbled, skimming through the information.

“Looks like he blew the base up,” Tony pointed out.

Natasha frowned, “But apparently, he didn’t manage to kill Oduamadi or bring him into custody. He just destroyed the base and killed the majority of his soldiers… and, oh God…”

Bruce was reading along with her and finished the sentence, “And… several of Oduamadi’s eldest children were killed in the blast.” He turned to look at the others, his eyes wide.

Tony cursed under his breath while Steve whispered ominously, “He wants revenge.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here comes the big twist I didn't want to spoil in the story summary...

Clint was led into a dark cell, maybe eight feet to a side, with a heavy metal door and chains attached to the opposite wall of concrete. He was pleased that he had not been blindfolded and now knew the way from here to the bunker entrance. It seemed his captors weren’t concerned about him having a chance to escape, but he was hoping to make them pay for underestimating him. One of the soldiers yanked on a short string to light the bare bulb in the ceiling while two more shoved Clint toward the chains and fastened them to his wrists. He had enough slack to sit or stand and even to move about halfway across the cell. But for now he just stood facing the door, waiting for the man he knew would come.

The three guards remained on the far side of the cell, just inside the door. Clint was struck and somewhat saddened by how young they all were—teenagers risking their lives for the cause of a power-hungry psychopath. He wished that they didn’t have to die in this unnecessary war, hoped that he wouldn’t have to kill some of them to get out of here alive.

“Leave us,” a deep voice commanded from the hallway outside the open door, and the guards obediently vanished. The intimidating form of Joseph Oduamadi stepped into view. He was a tall man, powerfully built. He could flash a winning grin if the situation called for it, but Clint received only a dark glare that twisted slowly into a sinister smile. Wordlessly he was telling his prisoner that he would kill him how and when he chose.

“Agent Clint Barton,” the general growled. “I don’t believe we were properly introduced the last time you came to visit.”

“I know who you are,” Clint replied. “And it seems you know me, so let’s skip the formalities, shall we?”

Oduamadi laughed mirthlessly. “As you wish,” he said. “I had you brought here so that I could kill you myself, but I’ll have to wait a little longer. First, I think I would like to know everything you do about SHIELD. They have interfered with my plans for far too long. If you give me enough information, I may even decide to grant you a quick death… if not a painless one.”

“Save yourself some time—kill me now. But I guess you’ll want to drag it out. No matter what you do, I’m not going to talk, unless you’d like to hear my opinion on why you’ve failed to conquer the world so far. I’ll give you a hint: it’s more than just bad luck.”

“You have spirit,” Oduamadi said quietly. “I like that. The more determined you are, the more I will enjoy breaking you.”

Without warning, the man’s fists connected with Clint’s jaw and then his cheekbone, and the already concussed prisoner was seeing stars as he staggered backwards. Before he could gather his wits and fight back, a knee came up sharply into his gut and another right hook threw his head back into the wall. Hawkeye slumped to the floor, unconscious, blood streaming from the gash on his left cheek.

* * *

“What the hell were you thinking sending Clint on that mission?” Natasha Romanoff’s voice was a low growl. That tone combined with the dangerous look in her eyes made it just as frightening as if she had just screamed at Fury while running at him with a blade in each hand. Instead, she stood her ground and silently dared him to give the wrong answer, though her hand was, in fact, hovering quite close to the knife sheathed as always on her hip.

Fury didn’t even flinch. His one-eyed gaze met hers fearlessly. “How I assign missions is my own business, Agent Romanoff,” he said coolly. “But for your information, I never even mentioned this one to Hawkeye. I don’t know how he found out about the mission, but he was the one who came to me and asked for it just because it involved Joseph Oduamadi.”

“That _does_ sound like something Barton would do,” Steve agreed.

Fury continued, “Believe it or not, the rivalry between him and Oduamadi goes _both_ ways. Barton wants to finish what he couldn’t years ago.”

“And you usually grant your agents such foolish requests?” Thor asked skeptically.

Before Fury could reply, Bruce spoke up, his voice soft but with the usual disturbing tone of barely-concealed anger. “Sending them into possible traps with minimal back-up?”

“Minimal?” Tony muttered with a sideways glance at Banner. “By the way,” he declared bitterly, looking back at Fury, “the back-up would have appreciated a heads-up on the whole grudge-match situation.”

“I don’t have time to argue with all of you about how I do my job,” Fury seethed. “Right now, let’s focus on search and rescue. We have multiple leads on possible bases in the region where Oduamadi may be holding Hawkeye.”

“Sounds like a lot of speculation there,” Banner said. “You didn’t seem so doubtful about your intelligence when you sent Barton and Stark to Lagos.”

“That’s enough! Just get out there and find him. Agent Hill, give them what we know and get them in the field.” With that, Nick Fury spun on his heel and stormed out of the room.

* * *

It was hard to tell time in the windowless cell, especially when interrogations and meager meals both came at random times, but Clint was pretty sure it had been quite a few days now, maybe about a week. The good news was that his head didn’t hurt quite as bad as it had the first two days; the bad news was that everything else hurt now. His whole body was bruised and battered. But he hadn’t talked. That is, he hadn’t answered any of their questions. He had, in fact, talked about lots of things—whatever senseless ideas popped into his head—just because it was easier than sitting for hours without saying a word.

When Oduamadi showed up to personally question him, Clint tended to switch from meaningless chatter to defiant taunts. But while his men alternated between questions and punches that did nothing more than bruise, the general did not hesitate to draw blood or break ribs just for the pleasure of watching his prisoner suffer. The archer was relieved that the torture had not yet escalated to broken fingers or limbs, but he guessed that was coming. Oduamadi had lost patience with him, and Clint feared that the slow, painful death he had been promised was about to begin.

* * *

Every lead so far had been a dead end—not a sign of Hawkeye at any of the insignificant outposts or abandoned bases that SHIELD and the Avengers had investigated in search of Oduamadi’s headquarters. They wouldn’t admit it to each other, but the team was beginning to lose hope. Their only comfort was the fact that at least they had not found any evidence that Clint was dead. But the untamed wilderness here was vast, only a small percentage of it searched, and the enemy could be hiding their comrade anywhere.

Late one night, Tony was trying unsuccessfully to sleep when Pepper called him again. She sounded very worried over the phone as she drilled him about the situation and about how the team was handling it. She knew that he was taking it hard because he had been the one with Clint when he was captured. The guilt over the fact that he had been powerless to save his friend was eating him up, and Pepper had been doing her best at long-distance therapy for several weeks now. But she also asked about the others a lot, especially Natasha. Since when was the emotional welfare of all the other Avengers Pepper’s concern?

“Romanoff’s been a bit distant, but that’s how she always is,” Tony pointed out. “You can’t tell how she feels about Clint’s disappearance by looking at her, but we all know she’s worried. It’s only natural. They’re pretty close, and she’s been a little protective of him ever since that time Loki turned him to the dark side.”

“Look,” Pepper ordered, “if the team is going on any rescue missions, you can’t let Natasha go anymore. I know she wants to, and I understand that, but you have to promise me you’ll stop her from now on.”

“Pepper, dear,” Tony reminded her in a sing-song voice, “that would be suicidal.”

“I’m serious, Tony. She’s taken enough risks going after Clint already. I’ve talked to her myself, but she isn’t going to listen.”

“We’re all risking our necks for him. That’s what a team does. What makes her so special? You, of all people, can’t believe she’s more fragile just because she’s a girl.”

“Can you just try not to be a jerk for one minute?”

“Me? A jerk?” he quipped. “Pepper, that hurts. It really does.” Silence on the other end of the line prompted a hurried, “Yeah, okay, but why exactly am I supposed to put my life on the line to stop the Black Widow from risking hers? You’re not making any sense right now.”

“Natasha and I were talking… the day Clint was captured,” Pepper replied hesitantly, “and this was something she was hopefully going to discuss with him when he got back, but…”

“Pepper, just tell me.”

“It’s – it’s not really my place to say it… but there’s something she hasn’t told any of you. Something I think you all have to know now. And she isn’t exactly going to bring it up on her own.”

“She and Clint are sort of a couple. I already know.”

“There’s more to it than that.”

“Then stop beating around the bush!”

“She’s pregnant.”

Maybe for the first time in his life, Tony Stark was speechless.

But that hardly mattered since Pepper was still talking very quickly. “Tony, at first she wasn’t even going to tell Clint, but I think she’s changed her mind about it all since he went missing. In any case, I think you have to know. Like I said, she won’t listen to me—she’s too worried about Clint—but if the whole team refuses to let her endanger herself, she’ll have to give in.”

“Wait, Pepper, slow down.” Tony managed. “What was the first bit again? You said Natasha Romanoff is _pregnant_? Because I’m still kinda having a hard time with that part.”

“Yes, Tony, for God’s sake! She may be a spy or whatever, but she is also a woman, and she’s pregnant. And Clint is going to be a father, and he doesn’t even know. And that’s why he can’t be dead, and you have to find him, Tony. But you can’t let anything happen to Natasha in the meantime. Promise me, Tony.”

Tony was glad she couldn’t see him now. He was in complete shock, his head in his hands. One of his best friends might be dead and never know about his unborn child. He sighed, trying to pull himself together. “I promise,” he said finally. “Granted, I don’t know how I’m going to do this without being murdered by the Black Widow. But… you can be sure I’ll do whatever I have to. For Clint. For his family.”


	5. Chapter 5

In Natasha’s opinion, Tony had been acting rather strangely for several days now. Sure, the whole team was on edge, more than a little sleep-deprived, constantly thinking of their missing friend. Banner spent a good deal of his time holed up in his lab researching possible locations for rebel bases. Everyone had given up trying to keep track of whether or not Captain America or Thor were on board the helicarrier at all. The former was always leading SHIELD teams on missions to the mainland. The latter flew over the region daily, searching for anything his allies may have missed. More vocal than the others about how useless he felt these days, the Asgardian often complained to anyone present that he could have easily located Barton by now if Heimdall would help him.

But now even Tony, who had tried the hardest to keep up an air of normalcy around the others, had abandoned his weak show of carefree jesting (which wasn’t the same anyway without Clint there to join in with his own wisecracks). Actually, he had almost stopped talking at all, at least from what Natasha saw of him. She couldn’t say that he had lost hope; in fact, the determined fire in his eyes looked even stronger than ever when he spoke of finding Barton. It was something more… more than the guilt and worry he’d been feeling since that mission had gone wrong. Natasha guessed that something else was weighing very heavily on his mind. She knew the feeling well.

Early one afternoon, the team had gathered in a common room near all their quarters for a quick meeting to discuss the newest leads in the search for Hawkeye. Rogers had taken charge of such meetings and was currently asking Banner if he had found anything useful. Natasha was only half paying attention. She kept catching Tony glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. It was getting on her nerves.

“Thor, I want you to check out this area,” Steve was saying next, pointing to a map. “The highlands are a bit rough, making it hard for ground teams to penetrate. Now, the rainforest is dense, but try to find roads or clearings that might be man-made.”

“Agent Romanoff, you and I can go in with the next team… here.” He pointed at the map again. “Recon spotted a small camp of armed men. Could be poachers, could be our ‘free army.’ If it is the latter, I highly doubt they’d be holding Barton here, but we may get some new information. We’re planning to leave in an hour.” Natasha nodded.

“Uh, not a good idea,” Stark said suddenly. Everyone turned to look at him. “I mean, good, go check out that camp—” _(Crap, I’m a dead man.)_ “—but Agent Romanoff had better sit this one out, don’t you think, Natasha?”

The red-head glared at him, and if looks could kill…. “What are you trying to say, Stark?” she asked, her voice deceptively calm.

“I think you know,” he replied cautiously. _Maybe I can still convince her without telling everyone?_

In the blink of an eye, the former spy leapt at Stark, swept his feet out from under him, and threw him to the ground. Her knee pressed down hard on his arc reactor, making it difficult for him to catch his breath. _Maybe not._

“What the hell?” Tony spluttered.

“Natasha, get off him!” Rogers ordered, but no one made a move to interfere. They all had a feeling the Black Widow would make them regret it.

“You think I know? _What_ do you think I know?” It was less a question than a challenge. Tony knew that the wrong reply might mean a serious amount of pain, so he said nothing (and hoped that wasn’t the wrong thing to do either). The two of them looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment, and somehow – as if she could read his mind – Natasha _did_ know. “How did you find out?” she whispered at last, though she already knew the answer.

“Pepper told me.”

“I trusted her!” she hissed.

“She’s—she’s worried about you. She—God, Natasha, I can’t breathe!” She shifted, lifting her knee off his chest, though he thought she took an awfully long time to do so. Tony gasped, “She just didn’t want you to take any more risks.”

“We need to find Barton no matter what the risk. That’s the most important thing right now.”

“Is it? I mean, is that what Clint would say if he knew? Come on, Natasha, think of what he would want.”

Thor cleared his throat loudly, and Tony suddenly remembered the other three standing around them. That’s right! He had back-up! He might survive this after all.

“Uh, do you two have something you’d like to share with the class?” Steve asked, raising his eyebrows expectantly.

“They need to know,” Tony said.

“You just brought it up in front of them so I wouldn’t be able to kill you,” she deduced.

Tony shrugged. “Maybe. That and, well, I can’t stop you from going on a mission without a little help. Clearly.” He glanced downward to indicate the fact that she still had him securely pinned down.

Natasha stood slowly. She silently looked each of her friends in the eye while Tony got to his feet as well.

“Something about why Clint wouldn’t want you to go after him?” Bruce prodded.

Natasha sighed. A lifetime of training. Years of trying her hardest _not_ to fall for Clint Barton. Months of pretending he wasn’t the closest thing to a boyfriend that she would ever have. All for naught thanks to something that had changed her life only weeks ago. Something that she had wanted to undo at first, but that she suddenly didn’t want to lose… especially if she was going to lose him.

“Clint wouldn’t want me to... to put the baby in danger… for him.” Her voice was barely audible but they all heard. The room was suddenly very quiet. Bruce raised his eyebrows inquisitively, Steve stared blankly, and Thor looked puzzled for a moment before smiling for the first time in ages.

“You mean to say that you are with child!” the god said almost jovially. He was already imagining an Asgardian-style feast in honor of the baby (once the reunited team was in a celebrating mood again, that is).

“And Clint is the father,” Tony confirmed solemnly, “not like you all couldn’t have guessed _that_. Hey, Cap, you might want to pick your jaw up off the floor now.”

“Um,” Rogers faltered for a moment, “that’s… probably…” His voice grew stronger as the truth sunk in. “Probably something you should have told me _before_ I put you in harm’s way these last few weeks.” He sounded a little angry now. Only a few days earlier, he’d been in the jungle taking fire from guerilla fighters _with Natasha by his side_. If he had known, he would never have put her in danger like that. “How long have you known? The whole time he’s been gone?”

Natasha nodded. Her gaze fell as though she was studying the floor a few feet in front of her. “I wasn’t even sure that I was going to tell Clint. But then he didn’t come back. And now…” She sighed a little. “I wish I had told him before he left,” she confessed.

“Could you really have given up the baby?” Bruce asked.

Natasha looked up at him. “Well, I don’t think I could have gone through with an abortion—I know what Clint would think of that. But I might have been able to live with myself if I gave the baby up for adoption. I figured I could tell everyone I was going deep under cover for the next nine or ten months…” Then she said, without reservation, what she’d been telling herself for the last four or five weeks. “I’m not a mother! I’m _not_ the kind of person who should be raising a baby.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Steve said scornfully. “After all, just a few minutes ago you agreed to join me on a mission that was bound to turn into a firefight. Like Stark said, how do you think Clint would feel about that?”

Natasha felt just a little guilty because she really _should_ have been more careful. And maybe she should have told them she was expecting. But how was it fair for all of them to find out before Clint even knew?

But mostly she felt angry. She was frustrated that they would judge her for such personal decisions (though deep down, she knew it was only because they cared). And she found that she was even more enraged at the general injustice of the whole situation. It was bad enough that she now found herself facing a future she had never imagined and for which she had certainly never been trained, but now Clint was gone just when she needed him. He was _so_ much better at this emotional stuff. And what hurt worst of all was the fact that she was certain he would make a wonderful father… if only he got the chance.

All these emotions flashed through her mind in mere seconds, and then she had pushed them away again—all but one. She couldn’t shake the anguish she felt for Clint’s sake. He would have been ecstatic to learn that he was going to have a child. He deserved that chance far more than she did.

“What Clint would think may not matter now,” she said bluntly, voicing just one of her thoughts aloud. “We all know he might never come back. Then what? If I go out of my way to protect myself and our child, but lose him…” Her mental walls were starting to weaken again. She was fighting back tears and decided to blame it on the hormones because the Black Widow doesn’t cry. She conquered the tears, but her voice cracked as she whispered, “I can’t do this alone.”

“You don’t have to,” Tony assured her. “I’m not saying any of us knows the first thing about raising a baby. But the fact that this kid will have four super-hero uncles looking out for him (or her) has _got_ to count for something.”

Natasha gave him a small, grateful smile.

“Look, I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I actually think you’d be a wonderful mother. I appreciate the fact that you want to help search for Clint, but try to understand that I need to know exactly what’s at stake when I hand out dangerous assignments.” Natasha gave him a slight nod that simultaneously accepted his apology while silently offering one of her own.

“Besides,” Tony said, hoping to lighten the mood, “if anything happens to you while you’re carrying Clint’s baby, we won’t dare to bring him home for fear that he’ll kill us all.” A collective snigger from the group was followed by a moment’s silence.

“So… now what?” Bruce asked.

“I’ll bring a few extra SHIELD agents with me in place of Natasha,” Steve said with a small a laugh. “We all know she’s worth at least three… maybe four men?” The other Avengers smiled appreciatively. “Tony, Bruce, if I don’t get any information out of this operation, you’d better be able to give me some possible locations for Oduamadi’s headquarters when I get back. It’s time to get back to work. Because we sure as hell aren’t giving up on Clint Barton now.”

* * *

Clint had to give Joseph Oduamadi some credit—the man seemed to have a talent for killing very slowly. It had been days since the warlord had given up on interrogation to focus purely on torture, and Clint was _still_ alive. Honestly, Oduamadi was showing a lot of restraint for someone so eager for revenge. His methods meant almost no food, very little water, and only a few hours of sleep over the last few days. In addition, the beatings had intensified and now involved some sort of metal pipe. At the rate he was going, it might be a few days more before he finished his prisoner off.

It seemed like Oduamadi was aiming for the already broken ribs on purpose. It felt like the final blow of their last session had nearly punctured a lung. Alone at last, Clint shifted his weight cautiously and tried to sit up a bit, wheezing with each labored breath. In the total darkness, he used his sense of touch to try to survey the damage to his body. He’d been bruised, cut, and even burned here and there. He knew if his lung was punctured, he would need a doctor very soon before it collapsed. His busted kneecap from a few days ago still hurt the worst, though, and now the swollen area around the broken skin felt warm to the touch. The injured joint was definitely infected, and he already had the fever to prove it.

Clint wondered what the Avengers were doing right now. He knew they would be searching for him—clearly they didn’t know where he was, or they would have rescued him by now. He could only hope that Tony was alright. Clint felt bad now about bringing him along on that mission. But how could he have known that it was a trap? All he had expected was an easy opportunity to catch some of Oduamadi’s men, maybe learn his whereabouts or at least the details of whatever rise-to-power scheme he was concocting these days. He hadn’t realized just how much the general hated him for what happened all those years ago.

Clint turned onto his less injured side and curled up, hoping he would be allowed a few hours of sleep this time. He was so tired now that even the haunting memory of Natasha’s last words to him couldn’t keep him awake as it often had just a few weeks ago. “Sorry I’m late,” he whispered, tears in his eyes. He squeezed them shut and murmured one last desperate plea before drifting off. “Please, find me soon. Can’t hold out much longer…”


	6. Chapter 6

“What happened to Barton wasn’t your fault, you know,” Banner said, his voice low and level as always.

“Wha-?” Tony looked up from the detailed satellite photo he was studying. “I know that. Clint made it sound like a simple operation. And he never mentioned a powerful warlord who wanted him dead.”

“So what’s bothering you?”

“I don’t trust Fury. I mean, I never have, but…” He set the maps aside and leaned back in his seat. “Thor made a good point when we talked to Fury before. Since when does he let his agents dictate their own assignments? And he knew that sending Clint in there could end badly.”

“Do you think Fury knew it would be an ambush?”

“He runs the biggest intelligence agency in the world. I think he knew in advance what Clint and I were going to have for breakfast that morning,” Tony remarked.

“So he sent Clint into a trap, letting him think it was his idea…”

“Probably made sure someone leaked the mission intel to Clint, in fact, so he’d know it involved Oduamadi.”

“And he let him get captured? For what?”

“Fury wants that guy brought in, and no one is more determined to do it, given the history…” Tony frowned. “Not the worst plan in the world except that Clint was kept in the dark. And now we can’t find him.”

“Yeah, you’d think SHIELD could have given him some kind of tracker. But maybe they did. I’m guessing Oduamadi’s smart enough to disable it before bringing him to his top-secret base.”

“The base which we need to find _now_ ,” Tony remembered. “Back to work. We can assign blame for all of this later.”

* * *

All too soon, the heavy door creaked open again, and the light switched on. But Clint was so exhausted that he didn’t wake until he felt hands on his shoulders, trying to help him sit up. He blinked against the light as he tried to guess what was coming next. The person left him seated with his back against the wall. And then she spoke, and Clint was astounded that it was a gentle female voice.

“I brought some food. It isn’t much, just some broth, but I think that is the most you can eat after so many days without.” There was a bowl in her hands, and she was lifting a spoon to his mouth, which he did not open. “I mean you no harm,” the woman insisted. “He wants to kill you himself. He would not send me to poison you.” Still, she set the bowl aside for a moment, offering a bottle of water instead.

Clint was so thirsty that he couldn’t turn it down. He took the bottle and sipped slowly. “Who are you?” he rasped.

“My name is Lara,” she said. “I want to help you, but there isn’t much time.”

“Pretty name,” Clint mumbled. The fever seemed to be getting worse, and he had to struggle to clear his muddled mind. “Where is he?”

“Asleep.” She picked up the bowl again. “You need to eat.”

“No, I need to get out of here.”

“I cannot help with that. Besides, you are too weak. Eat first.” She held up a spoonful of soup, and with a sigh, Clint decided she was right.

“I can feed myself,” he insisted, taking the bowl from her and forcing himself to eat slowly. The broth was actually very good. “Why are you helping me?” he asked between spoonfuls.

“Because I forgive you for what happened seven years ago,” she said simply, “and God would want me to show it.”

Realization struck Clint now. This was Onolara _Oduamadi_ , but she was not at all what he would have expected. She was petite, graceful, very beautiful. She actually reminded him of Natasha somehow, but a little older, with dark skin and eyes, and with much longer brown hair. (And that was actually a lot of differences, and Clint thought maybe the fever was making him a little loopy.) She was examining his wounds while he ate. His pants were torn off just above the knees, and she was looking at his damaged right knee with great concern.

“I have told him that he, too, must forgive you, if he wishes to save his soul. But he clings to hate.” Lara did not look up at him as she spoke. She was using a wet cloth to wash the dried blood off his body. “He says he is doing this for our sons, but I know they would not have wanted it.”

“I didn’t want _any_ of them to die,” Clint revealed. “They were just children.”

“I know,” she replied calmly. “You did not kill my sons—Joseph did. He brought them into this war. He was a fool to expect that he could gain this much without making sacrifices.”

* * *

Steve Rogers definitely looked a little worse for wear after that last trip into the jungle. A bullet had nicked his shoulder, evidence that there had indeed been a firefight. Despite a successful battle with the armed men, Steve’s mission had been a failure—not that he wasn’t glad to put a stop to some illegal poaching, but it didn’t do Hawkeye any good. After a short debrief, he made his way to the lab where Stark and Banner were hard at work. He needed to get cleaned up and try to sleep, but he was too eager to see if the others had made any progress.

When he stepped into the room, he saw Tony, Bruce, and Thor all bending over a table, talking excitedly. They seemed to be looking at one of the satellite photos. “Please tell me you’ve got good news,” Steve begged.

“This could be it!” Tony said, looking up at him with a smile.

“You’re sure?” Steve asked, rushing over.

Bruce nodded. “Thor spotted a road and what looks like the entrance to an underground bunker.”

Thor looked quite proud of himself. “It was well concealed by the forest canopy,” he said. “The stronghold is built into the hill. I saw a number of armed guards outside. The location seems to be of great importance.”

“I’ve got a good feeling about this one,” Tony pressed. The optimism in the room was refreshing. Hope had become so rare in recent days. “You up for another trip to the mainland, Cap?”

“There’s no time to waste,” Steve said. “We can’t go in there tonight, but if we leave early enough, we can be in position at first light. I’m taking this to Fury. We’ll put together our best teams and get some medical staff ready too.”

The four of them streamed out of the lab together. They hadn’t discussed what they should tell Romanoff or when, but they weren’t going to get the chance. She happened to be walking down the hall as the other Avengers rounded a corner. It was pretty obvious that something was going on when she saw the knot of superheroes rushing along toward the bridge.

“What is it?” Natasha asked, stopping the group in middle of the hallway.

Tony glanced at Rogers and nodded toward the bridge, “You guys go find Fury,” he said. “I’ll fill her in.” The others seemed relieved that he had volunteered for the task and hurried on their way. A few SHIELD agents walking the other way gave the Avengers a curious look as they passed. “Not here,” Tony suggested, leading Natasha into an unoccupied room nearby.

“Did you find him?” she asked candidly.

“We hope so. We’ve got what looks like a pretty significant secret army base. Could be Oduamadi’s HQ.”

Natasha bit her lip, pondering her options. “I have to go in on this one,” she said. “I know none of you want me in danger, but I can’t just sit here and wait…”

Tony sighed. He knew there could be no fighting her on this one. If roles were reversed, if Pepper’s life was on the line, wouldn’t he want to go after her? “Steve, Thor, and I will be leading the offensive,” he said at last, “and we can’t let you join in. But Bruce will probably hang back with the medical team, since getting the Hulk involved ups the odds of getting Clint killed.”

“I’ll go with him,” Natasha agreed. “We won’t move in until it’s relatively safe. Good enough?”

Tony thought for a moment, then nodded. “I know he’s there, Natasha,” he offered. “He has to be alive. I mean, look at me, I was in captivity more than three times as long, and I survived. Clint’s a lot stronger than I am.”

“Yeah, but they wanted you alive. They needed you to do something for them. This guy just wants Clint dead.”

“Well, we’d better hope he delayed that long enough trying to learn some SHIELD secrets, huh?”

“What we’d better hope for,” Natasha said despondently, “is a miracle.”

“Then start praying,” Tony suggested, as he turned to the door. The two of them hurried back into the hallway together, hoping to catch up with the others.

“By the way,” he asked a moment later, as they were walking, “how’d Fury take the news? About, you know…”

Natasha let out a short laugh. “Not as well as the rest of the team did. Let’s just say he lived up to his name. He wants me grounded from all missions… but if you guys back me up, he’ll have to let me go along this time.”

“Promise to stay safe, and the team will vouch for you.”

“Deal.”

* * *

Onolara glanced nervously toward the door. “I have to go,” she said, removing the damp cloth from Clint’s warm forehead.

“Please,” he gasped, “I need to get out of here.”

“I— I can’t help you,” she whispered.

He held up a cuffed hand, rattling the chain. “Do you have a bobby pin in your hair?” he asked hopefully. He considered himself an expert picklock if only he had a tool that would work.

The woman draped the newly bloodstained washcloth over her arm, gathered the empty bowl and water bottle, and stood wordlessly. He thought she would leave, but she paused for a moment, reached up to her hair, and pulled out whatever had held it back from her face. Bending down, she pressed the hairpin into his hand, then straightened and moved to the door. “Good luck,” Lara murmured. And then the light went out, the door opened and closed, and she was gone.

In the pitch black, it took Clint a while to get started on picking the lock. But once he had the pin in place, it all came down to his sense of touch anyway. It seemed to take forever, and he was getting more and more nervous that he would be interrupted for more torture. But at long last, he had his right hand free, and he quickly moved on to his left.

Once his hands were unchained, there was the not-so-simple matter of getting to his feet. Leaning heavily against the wall, and with a good deal of huffing and puffing, he was up. It hurt to bend his right knee, but if he kept his weight on his good leg as much as possible, he found he could limp awkwardly to the door. But now what? This hairpin wasn’t going to do him any good here. The lock was only on the outside. Clint sighed and leaned weakly against the wall beside the door. He would have to wait. And considering how difficult it had been to get up, he would have to stay on his feet if he was to successfully jump the next person to enter the cell.

Natasha sat silently in the quinjet, staring blankly ahead. She seemed to be concentrating hard on controlling her breathing.

Dr. Banner glanced over at her. “You okay?” he asked. The engines were firing up now, and they would be taking off in a few minutes.

“Hmm?” She took a moment to register the fact that he had spoken. “Oh… yeah,” she said unconvincingly. “I mean, I will be. When we get Clint.” She anxiously adjusted her Widow’s Bite bracelets. “It’s just… I think when he left, he thought I was mad at him for something. I wasn’t. I just didn’t know how to tell him I was pregnant. I should have just said it. Maybe then he wouldn’t have gone…”

Bruce had his doubts about Hawkeye surviving so long in the hands of a mortal enemy, but he didn’t have the heart to voice them or to even think them consciously. “Everything’s going to be alright,” he said instead. He and Natasha both had a flashback to the last time she had told him that on the helicarrier, but despite how that situation had turned out, it was almost comforting. In the end, things had worked out then, including getting Clint back safe and sound from Loki’s clutches. Maybe the Avengers would get lucky again.

The jet pitched upward into the air, and Bruce suddenly felt twice as nervous as he had before. He spoke again to distract himself as much as Natasha from the current situation. “He’d be a good dad, wouldn’t he?” he reflected.

Nat nodded, a half smile on her lips. “He’d be the best,” she agreed. “Neither of us is prepared for this, but I think it’ll come to him naturally. He has this… ability… to balance strength with sentiment. It’s _not_ a talent of mine.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Bruce assured her. He looked over at the medical team carefully arranging their supplies. “I’m going to help make sure they’re ready… for when…”

Natasha nodded. “At least one of us can try to be helpful,” she said. “I’m just tagging along.”

Bruce paused on his way over to the med team, turning to point out, “When we find him, Clint won’t care if you’re doing anything useful. He’s just going to be glad you came.”


	7. Chapter 7

The absolute silence of Clint’s dark cell was broken by a muffled bang and loud shouts somewhere in the distance. Something was happening, probably at the main entrance to the bunker. Could it be a rescue attempt? Thunder rumbled overhead, and Clint smiled to himself. Definitely a rescue. Footsteps echoed in the hall outside, more yelling, not in English. _Come on_ , Clint thought from his hiding place beside the door, _time to check on the prisoner…._ Right on cue, the lock clicked and the door swung open. An imprudent young guard stepped inside and didn’t even have time to wonder why his prisoner was no longer chained to the far wall.

The guard’s only weapon had been a simple baton. Clearly Oduamadi was not stupid enough to put a firearm within his prisoner’s reach. With the small club clutched in his left hand, Clint reached for the wall with his right, struggling to keep upright as he hobbled as fast as he could toward the main entrance. More footsteps sounded somewhere ahead, and he checked that the next room he came to was clear before ducking inside and closing the door behind him. To his delight, Clint found himself in Oduamadi’s private war room. The general was obsessed with learning about famous military strategists, and this room featured a bookcase full of suggested reading for the aspiring martial ruler. Half a dozen display cases also revealed Oduamadi’s prized collection of various weapons from around the world. The archer’s eyes were immediately drawn to a sturdy-looking wooden recurve hanging on the wall with a quiver of arrows nearby.

Clint tossed the baton aside with a grin, gave a test pull on the bowstring, and examined a few of the arrows. Everything seemed to be in perfect condition. Slinging the quiver over his shoulder, the archer felt much more at ease with his weapon of choice now in hand. More footsteps ran by in the main hallway. He’d never make it through that way. Instead, using the bow like a walking stick, Clint limped over to a second door on the opposite side of the room, hoping it would eventually lead to another escape route.

At first it seemed that Clint had chosen very unwisely. He had clearly just stepped into Joseph Oduamadi’s private quarters. Thanks to all the commotion outside, the general was no longer asleep. He had just pulled on a shirt when _his_ _prisoner_ walked in on him armed with _his_ _bow_. Oduamadi started to reach for the handgun on his bedside table, but Barton was too quick. He instinctively flinched and drew his hand back as an arrow buried itself in the wood just between his fingertips and the gun.

“Don’t move,” Clint warned. “Hands up. Now two steps forward.”

“I will still kill you, Agent Barton,” Oduamadi growled.

“I don’t think so,” Barton retorted, his brash flippancy returning now that he had a measure of power over his captor. He was starting to think that he’d actually been very lucky to walk through that particular door. “I think you’ll lead me to your backdoor. I know you’ve got a secret escape for situations like this. You see, I’m pretty sure my team is here to get me, and your men don’t stand a chance. So let’s go for a walk before someone comes to get you, shall we?”

If Oduamadi had any fleeting thoughts of trying to fight Barton or of stalling until one of his commanders came to inform him of the battle going on at the front door, the arrow pointed directly at his head changed his mind. Unless he found an opportunity to regain the upper hand, he would have to do as the archer said. He led Clint through another door, down a narrow hallway, then through two more empty rooms. Clint was beginning to think the man was going to lead him in circles when fresh air rushed though one last door. The two men stepped into the morning light, and Clint glanced back at the way they had come. The exit was perfectly concealed by the dense shrubbery; no one would have spotted it from here.

They were away from the fighting now, and Clint didn’t have to worry about getting swept up in the skirmish, which would have ended badly for him in his current state. But now what? He couldn’t just stand here and wait for his friends to find him. “How do we get back to your front entrance from here?” he demanded.

“We go back in that door, the way we came, straight up the main hallway.” For his sarcastic reply, Oduamadi was treated to the shock of an arrow flying past his head, less than two inches from his ear. He ground his teeth angrily, but kept his mouth shut as he turned to lead Barton down the hillside to where his friends and SHIELD were fighting their way into the base.

Trekking through the jungle wasn’t his best idea, but Clint managed it while still keeping his weapon level. Once, he nearly lost his footing on a steep slope. Oduamadi turned, hoping this was the chance he’d been waiting for. But even as his right knee struck the ground and a cry of pain escaped his lips, Clint fired a perfectly placed arrow into his assailant’s shoulder. The larger man stumbled, clutching at the wound, giving Clint time to regain his feet. “That won’t kill you,” he snarled. “But try that again, and the next arrow hits you in the eye. Now keep moving,” he barked.

* * *

By the time the medical team arrived on location, SHIELD troops had established a perimeter around the entrance to the bunker with sweepers checking for enemy patrols outside the secured area. The pilot set them down on the road (the only space clear enough to land). Opening the back door so that they and the medics could see the distant action though the trees, Bruce and Natasha forced themselves to stay put and wait for word from the others.

Oduamadi had a lot of manpower and some relatively high-tech weapons, but none of that mattered against a surprise attack. Most of the enemy soldiers were probably still sleeping, and only so many at a time could come out to face their attackers. Iron Man had blasted open the reinforced front doors as if they’d been made of plywood. He and Captain America were now helping the SHIELD teams try to hold off the young soldiers who were streaming from the hill like ants defending their nest. Thor was alternating between calling down lightning on his foes and swinging his hammer mercilessly.

“We’ve got them bottle-necked here, but there must be other entrances,” Natasha muttered.

“I saw some SHIELD units spread out around the bunker,” Bruce told her. “I’m sure that’s what they’re looking for.”

“Holding them here isn’t good enough,” she insisted. “If we don’t breech their line of defense soon, he’s sure to kill Clint before we can get to him.”

Bruce laid a comforting hand on her shoulder, but he couldn’t say that she was wrong. The whole team knew that time was not on their side. And that was if Clint was even alive after weeks of captivity. “Do you want me to send ‘the other guy’ in there? He could smash the whole entrance open. But he could kill Clint too.”

“Thanks, anyway.”

It wasn’t long before a number of wounded SHIELD agents had been helped or carried away from the fight. The medical teams busied themselves tending to them, and Bruce and Natasha offered to help however they could, if only to keep their minds off being left out of the fight.

* * *

Clint was very fortunate that the ground was more level and the undergrowth thinner as he and the general drew closer to the action. He was fighting the urge to collapse and let unconsciousness overwhelm him. With each step, the throbbing in his knee increased, and he was struggling more than ever to catch his breath. A severe pain in his chest told him that part of his punctured lung had probably collapsed. But the SHIELD agent carried on without a sound, save the harsh wheezing that accompanied each labored breath. He refused to let Oduamadi know just how badly he had wounded him.

The clatter of gunfire was growing louder. At this point, Clint didn’t need the general to lead him in the right direction. Soon he saw distant figures through the trees. The front of the bunker was now to his right, and an offensive line to the left curved away in a crescent shape around the defenders. Afraid that his hostage would try to make another move soon, Clint inched closer to the bigger man until his bow actually rested against his back and the tip of the arrow just grazed his neck. “Don’t get any ideas,” he warned as they neared some of the combatants.

One of Oduamadi’s men saw them first, and seeing the general with a weapon trained on him at point blank range was clearly quite a shock. The young man looked at Clint, then Joseph, then slowly lowered his weapon and dropped it on the ground. “That’s right,” Clint barked. “Drop your weapons or your boss dies.” Warning shouts rang out across the area and, one-by-one, Oduamadi’s men began to surrender.

Confused by the enemy’s sudden surrender the Avengers turned back from the doorway to see what was happening. Tony saw him first, and a wave of relief washed over him. “It’s Clint!” he cried, pointing him out to Steve and Thor. “Looks like he didn’t need our help after all.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Steve answered as the three of them rushed toward their long-lost friend. Even from this distance, he could see the dark bruises and bloody wounds covering Clint’s entire body. The archer had Joseph Oduamadi on his knees now, an arrow pointed directly at the back of his head, but he seemed to be swaying unsteadily.

Clint looked up at his friends as they ran toward him. “What took you so long?” he joked. All around him, SHIELD personnel were rounding up their defeated opponents.

From the medical jet, Bruce and Natasha heard the sounds of battle suddenly ceasing and looked up to see what was going on. The defenders were dropping their weapons, and the other Avengers were running to the right along the frontline. Nat’s gaze flew ahead of them, and she saw the person to whom they were sprinting. “Clint,” she breathed. Her previous plan had been to try to stay composed in front of the other SHIELD agents when they found Clint, whether he was dead or alive, but any concern for her reputation suddenly vanished from her mind. She was up and flying as fast as her feet would carry her before Bruce could consider discouraging her from running out into the combat zone.

“CLINT!” she cried.

At the sound of her voice, Clint turned and saw Natasha running toward him, her fiery red hair flying behind her, a look of relief and joy on her face. He had never been happier to see anyone in his entire life, but he couldn’t call back to her—his body was no longer responding. He was struggling just to breathe.

The closest three Avengers reached Barton first. Tony pointed a repulsor at Oduamadi and dared him to move. Two more SHIELD agents showed up with their weapons trained on the general as well. Clint was looking at Oduamadi again. Suddenly he knew what he should do next. “I’m gonna kill ‘im now,” Clint declared, his speech slurring slightly. The adrenaline rush was gone, and he was quickly crashing. His vision was beginning to blur, and he knew he didn’t have much time. He pointed his arrow at the base of Oduamadi’s skull, drew it back just a little farther.

Steve shook his head, stepping between the archer and his captive. “No, Clint, we’ve got him now. It’s okay. He’ll pay for what he’s done, but killing him here and now will only make him a martyr. You don’t want that.”

“Get outta my way,” Clint panted. “I’m really gonna do it. I’m gonna shoot him.” But an armored hand grasped his bow where the arrow rested against it. Clint looked up at Iron Man as the mask retracted. “Tony…” he gasped upon seeing his friend’s face, “You’re alright. I was worried.” Forgetting his hostage, he relaxed the bowstring, let Tony take the weapon from his hands.

“I’m fine,” Tony assured him. “They were after you, not me.”

“Thanks for… for coming to save me,” Clint said.

“Looks like you managed to escape without our help,” Tony pointed out.

“Yeah, but you were… the distraction I needed…”

Then everything around him seemed to be doing cartwheels, and his vision blurred. He was falling back, and someone caught him just before he hit the ground, gently lowering him down. Struggling to bring everything back into focus, Clint saw Natasha’s face swim into view. She was cradling his head on her knees, and he could have sworn there were tears in her eyes.

“Clint,” she whispered. “It’s okay, Clint. You’re going to be alright.”

“Nat,” he murmured. He wanted to say more, but it was getting so difficult to get any air into his lungs.

“Try not to speak,” Natasha instructed, seeing his distress. “Just focus on breathing. You’ve gotta stay with us, Clint. Just keep breathing.”

Then the medics were all around him, and for a moment he couldn’t see her face. At first he almost panicked, but then he could feel her hand on his head, stroking his hair gently, while the doctors prodded his bruised abdomen, felt his ribs for the fractures he already knew where there, stabilized his broken knee, and tried to ask him questions that he could no longer comprehend, let alone answer. The only voice he could make out was hers. “Hang in there, Clint. Please… stay with me. I need you. _We_ need you.”


	8. Chapter 8

Though Clint was no longer awake, Natasha refused to leave his side while the medical team placed him on a stretcher. “He needs immediate surgery to repair his lung and probably several other damaged organs,” the head doctor, Lee Kirby, told the Avengers. “It looks like we’re dealing with a fair amount of internal bleeding as well as his visible wounds.”

“He’s burning up,” Bruce said, laying a hand on Clint’s forehead as they moved toward the jet. “He’ll need antibiotics to fight that infection.” The doctor nodded.

Rogers, Stark, and Thor stood back as the others boarded the medical jet and prepared for take-off. Already, the doctors were hooking their patient up to monitors and IVs. “We’ll meet you back on the helicarrier,” Steve called to Bruce and Natasha, though only the former was paying attention.

As soon as the jet took off, Captain America turned to his companions. “We still have work to do here,” he said, turning back toward the bunker.

“What?” Tony balked. “You want us to help on clean-up duty? We came here to rescue Barton. Rounding up prisoners and securing the base won’t do him a damn bit of good now.”

“We have a duty to finish this battle properly,” Thor began.

But Iron Man’s helmet snapped shut as he fired up his thrusters and flew into the air before pausing to turn toward them. “Not interested,” he declared, the suit giving his voice a strange tinny sound. “You two can play the dutiful SHIELD agents today if you want, but I’m looking after Hawkeye.” Then, before Steve could protest, Tony flew off in a graceful arc back toward the helicarrier.

Steve and Thor looked at each other. They both felt the same way that Tony did, but _someone_ had to be responsible. Luckily for them, Maria Hill had witnessed the whole exchange with Stark. She materialized behind the remaining two Avengers and touched Steve’s shoulder. “We’ve got this covered,” she said. “Go on, get back there.”

“You sure?” Rogers asked, not wanting her to take on extra work for his sake.

“Your team needs you more than we do,” she insisted.

Thor nodded, and Steve replied simply, “Yes, ma’am,” with a thankful smile.

* * *

As soon as their quinjet landed on the helicarrier, Rogers and Thor rushed toward the infirmary. Banner met them on the way to direct them to the waiting room where the others had gathered. Tony was pacing up and down the hall outside, apparently talking to Pepper on the phone. Inside the room, Natasha sat statue-like in the far corner, staring straight ahead, and did not seem to notice the appearance of the rest of the team. The new arrivals grabbed a few chairs by the door, and Bruce began to fill Steve and Thor in on what they had missed.

“It’s like he used the last of his strength in that escape,” he said. “We almost lost him twice on the way back.”

Natasha stood abruptly and began pacing the room. The others looked at her uneasily and then turned back to Banner. Tony appeared in the doorway in time to hear Bruce list off everything that was wrong with Clint and what the doctors were hoping to repair in surgery. It was a long list, but most of it sounded easily treatable, even his collapsed lung. Most frightening was, perhaps, the fact that his infected knee might be so bad that doctors were “hoping they’ll be able to save his leg.”

“Still,” Bruce emphasized with a glance toward the Black Widow as he spoke, “Dr. Kirby seems to be confident that we got to him in time.” Natasha stopped pacing and looked at him, knowing he was talking to her more than anyone else. She returned to her chair and sat stiffly once more. He continued, “Clint is a fighter. He’ll get through this.”

“That’s right,” Tony said from the doorway. “He didn’t survive for three weeks and break out of that place on his own just to give up now.”

* * *

It seemed like an eternity before they had word from the surgeons, though it actually took less time than Dr. Kirby had predicted. No one had moved or spoken very much, and only Rogers had left the waiting room long enough to change out of his uniform and bring back bottles of water which he offered (and in some cases forced upon) the others. Finally the doctor showed up to assure them that the surgery had gone well.

“Can we see him?” Natasha asked. It was the first time she had spoken since Clint had gone into surgery.

“He isn’t awake and probably won’t be for hours, but you can sit with him if you want.”

The team followed the doctor down the hallway while he detailed what the next steps in Barton’s recovery would involve. He was breathing well enough on his own that they had replaced an oxygen mask with a simpler nasal cannula, but he still had a tube inserted into his chest under his left arm to release any air that escaped his lung so that the pressure wouldn’t build up under his ribcage and collapse his lung again. He seemed to be responding to antibiotics so far, and his fever was coming down.

By the time the group arrived at Barton’s room, they were a little more prepared to see their friend in such a condition—lying in a hospital bed surrounded by tubes and wires and quietly beeping monitors—but that didn’t make it much easier. He looked so thin and pale, so uncharacteristically vulnerable. Everyone squeezed into the room, hovering near the door as if moving any closer might disturb the patient.

After a moment, Natasha pushed past Bruce and went to stand by the bed. She studied her sleeping partner for a moment, reached down to adjust the sheet where it rested across his chest, and then tentatively touched his forehead. He did feel a little cooler than before. She brushed her fingers gently across his cheek. By now everyone else had moved a little closer. There was nothing much to say, nothing they could do, but they were all just happy to finally see their long-lost friend relatively safe and sound.

“I don’t mind if one or two of you stay for a while,” the doctor said quietly. “But you’d best organize shifts. The room isn’t big enough for everyone, and you all need your rest too.” There was an unspoken agreement among the Avengers that at least one of them would always stay with him. The guys, however, were all wondering not only how they would convince Romanoff to take a break from time to time, but also how they would decide amongst themselves who should attempt such a perilous undertaking. For now the safest move seemed to be letting Natasha take the first shift… or two.

“I’d hang out for a while,” Tony said, “but I’d like to have a word with Fury.”

“I’ve already let him know that Barton made it through the surgery alright,” Dr. Kirby said.

“It’s not that. I want to see about getting this boat turned around, letting Clint recover back in the States.”

“He doesn’t like it here,” Natasha agreed. Clint had never said anything, of course, but whenever they came here before and after missions, she could tell he was more on edge. And she didn’t need to ask why. He hadn’t been comfortable onboard the helicarrier since he’d almost destroyed it for Loki. If their roles were reversed, Natasha would feel the same way that he did.

“I’ll stay,” Steve told the others quietly, and Bruce agreed to go with Tony. After all, having Banner along might make Fury more cooperative.

Once the others had gone, Steve walked around the bed and settled onto the seat under the window, which he thought was much too small—Clint liked a room with a view. Natasha bent over the bed, a wave of red hair falling to hide her face, and she gently kissed Clint’s forehead and then his lips. Steve blushed slightly and pretended he hadn’t seen. Without looking up at the captain, she pulled a chair closer to the bed, holding Clint’s hand between both of hers as she sat and watched him sleep.

* * *

After a while, when the sky outside the window had grown decidedly darker, Tony stuck his head in the door to see if Clint was awake yet.

“How’d the chat with Director Fury go?” Steve asked.

“Banner’s a good negotiator,” Tony said. “I had to agree to avoid directly blaming Nick for all of this, and in return it sounds like he’s willing to start back to New York soon. Or maybe he’s doing Barton a favor because he feels guilty about sending him into a trap.”

“I thought you were going avoid blaming Fury.”

“Only to his face.”

Steve chuckled a little. He looked exhausted. “Cap, you’ve been awake for at least the past 36 hours. Why don’t you get some sleep?” Natasha suggested.

“Neither of you have gotten any more sleep than I have,” Steve protested.

“I want to be here when he wakes up,” Tony admitted. Natasha didn’t speak—they already knew that she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Fine,” Steve sighed, getting to his feet. “I’ll check in later.”

Not wanting to disturb Clint, Tony turned on a small lamp near the bed rather than the harsh overhead one, then took Steve’s seat. “Any change?” he asked Natasha.

She shook her head. But she touched his forehead again and said hopefully, “I think his fever’s gone down a little more.”

After a moment’s silence, Tony asked, “And how are you doing?” Then he added, “Pepper wanted to know.”

“I’m fine. I’m… glad we got him back. I was starting to think…”

“We all were. So… you’re going to tell him now, right?”

“You really think shocking news like that is the first thing he should hear when he wakes up?”

Tony looked at his pallid friend and shrugged. “Okay, maybe not. Might wanna wait until he’s a _bit_ stronger.”

A nurse arrived then to check on the patient, as she had several times already, and Natasha welcomed the excuse to drop the subject. She did have to tell Clint she was pregnant, especially now that all the Avengers as well as Director Fury knew, but she still wasn’t sure how she would bring it up.

* * *

For a blissful moment between sleep and consciousness, Clint felt safe and warm, with no memory of what had happened to him and no concern for where he was now. But then he was awake and aware of himself, and all he knew was pain and cold and a sudden sense of panic. _What happened? Where am I?_ Then he remembered the escape. The last thing he recalled was dying in Natasha’s arms. No, not dying. He was pretty sure he was alive, but everything was dark. Then he realized that his eyes were closed, and he fought to open them.

His slight movements and the increase in his heart rate had told his companions that he was awake. They were already standing on either side of the bed. “Clint?”

“Nat,” he whispered hoarsely. Finally his eyelids obeyed him, and he found himself looking up at the woman he loved. She was smiling, that beautiful smile that most people rarely saw.

“Hey,” Tony spoke up from somewhere to his right. “How’re you feeling?”

That was a good question. Clint was still trying to decide if he was completely intact. He couldn’t seem to move any of his limbs just yet. But he could feel them—his right leg, at least, refused to be ignored. “Uh… I’ll let you know when I figure that out,” he said groggily. His arms started to function then, and he reached up, clumsily trying to pull the tube away from his nose.

“Leave it be,” Tony warned, pushing his hands away from his face. “They’ve got you on oxygen. Your lungs aren’t exactly fully-functioning right now.”

“I think one collapsed,” Clint managed feebly, remembering the excruciating pain on the left side of his chest.

“Yeah, it did,” Tony confirmed. “You just had surgery a few hours ago.”

“‘Kay,” Clint whispered incoherently.

“Hey,” Natasha said, touching Clint’s face, brushing his hair back from his sweaty forehead. “Stay with us, alright?”

Clint blinked, tried to clear his head. “Yeah, I’m good,” he said, but he couldn’t disguise the pain that edged his voice. “Won’t say no to some stronger meds, though.”

Tony was already halfway to the door. “We’ll see what we can do, buddy,” he said as he hurried into the hallway to look for Dr. Kirby.

Natasha was still standing next to the bed, and now she was frowning. “Clinton Francis Barton,” she scolded, “if you _ever_ scare me like that again, I swear I will kill you myself.”

“Got it,” Clint replied with a slight nod, knowing that she was only half joking. “So… you’re saying I’m not dead already? ‘Cause it kinda feels like it.”

Nat’s expression softened. “We thought you might be,” she said. “Three weeks. You didn’t call, didn’t write.” Clint’s lips formed a tiny smile, but she continued with anguish in her voice, “I thought I told you not to be late.”

His smile faded, and he nodded. He wanted to say something, tell her how much he had missed her, but he shivered again and could only whisper, “I’m cold.”

“You still have a fever,” Natasha said. “You’ve been getting chills.” She pulled his light blanket up more snugly.

Tony came back with the doctor and a nurse in tow. They asked how he was feeling again, took his temperature, looked at the sutures from the surgery, checked the chest tube, and listened to his breathing though a stethoscope. Finally, the doctor seemed satisfied and was ready to inject more drugs into Clint’s IV line.

As the painkillers kicked in, he relaxed and started to drop off again. Then he squeezed Natasha’s hand as he remembered something important. “We were gonna talk when I got back,” he murmured.

“Don’t worry, it can wait,” she said. “Sleep now.” His eyes slowly closed. She didn’t have to tell him that she would still be there when he woke again. He already knew.


	9. Chapter 9

After a while, Thor showed up with two plates from the mess hall. The food wasn’t gourmet by any stretch of the imagination, but Tony and Natasha accepted it gratefully. While they ate, they told the Asgardian about Clint’s few minutes of consciousness.

“He will recover, then,” Thor said cheerfully.

“He’s going to be fine,” Tony said. He stood and stepped toward the door. “Watching him sleep is making me drowsy,” he grumbled. “I’m going get some shut-eye myself.”

“You should rest as well,” Thor told Natasha. She just set her empty plate on the table by Clint’s bed and went back to resting her hand gently on his forearm.

“At least take a break,” Tony insisted. “Grab a quick shower, change into something more comfortable.” While she had removed her bracelets, Natasha was still wearing her Black Widow uniform. It wasn’t the comfiest outfit so she agreed to this, and she and Tony left Thor to watch over Hawkeye.

A few hours later, around 2 AM, Steve woke from his nap and returned to check on Clint as promised. His sweats and uncombed hair implied that he planned on going back to bed after a brief visit. Thor stepped out of the dimly lit room to give him the same report Tony and Natasha had provided him earlier.

Natasha, who was sitting beside the bed once more, turned toward the door for a few minutes, listening in. Just then, she felt Clint grasp her hand. She gasped his name loudly enough for the others to hear from the hall, and they rushed into the room to greet their friend. They couldn’t hide their excitement to see him awake—hearing his voice, however shaky it may be, gave them hope that he really would be okay. He smiled faintly and assured them that he was feeling much better, though he still looked terribly weak. Clint seemed a little surprised by the amount of attention he was receiving from the other Avengers, but he was also very thankful for such loyal friends.

The darkened room might have been for his sake, but he could tell by the pitch-black window to his right that it must be late at night. He wasn’t the only one who should be in bed. He squeezed Natasha’s hand to make sure he had her attention. “Have you slept at all?” he asked earnestly.

She shook her head. “I’m not tired.”

“Liar,” he spat.

“I’m not leaving.”

“Well, _I’m_ going back to bed,” Steve said sleepily. He felt there were more than enough people here considering the late hour. Clint thanked him for stopping by, and Steve smiled and muttered a final ‘good night’ as he left the room.

Thor was determined to stay, but when he had to stifle a yawn, Natasha sent him off to bed as well. The god wanted to argue that in her condition, it was more important for her to sleep, but he wouldn’t dare to mention the pregnancy in front of Clint. Even the mighty Thor wasn’t that brave.

Once she and Clint were alone, Natasha stood and fussed with his covers. Clint felt a little like a child being tucked in. He wanted to speak with her while they had the room to themselves, but breathing was taxing enough without trying to talk.

Clint shivered, and Natasha impulsively touched his forehead. “Are you cold?” she asked with a frown. “You’re still running a fever.”

“Can’t seem to get warm,” he admitted.

Nat smoothed out the blanket, then climbed up to lie beside him on the bed. She reached down and gently took his battered hand between her own. Clint pressed against the warmth of her body and closed his eyes. He hadn’t expected such intimacy from her here, where the doctors and nurses and other Avengers could walk in at any time. She had always hidden her emotions as if letting the world see her love for him would somehow make her more vulnerable. But maybe she had been even more affected by his disappearance than he had expected.

“Better,” Clint said, not just because he felt warmer now.

“Good night, Clint,” Natasha whispered.

Clint smiled a little, his eyes still closed. “I love you,” he whispered. It wasn’t the sort of thing he usually said aloud, but he needed her to hear it now.

Natasha only kissed his forehead in response. She lay awake for a long time, listening as his faint breaths slowed until she knew he was sleeping peacefully. Then, just as she was beginning to drift off herself, she breathed, “I love you too.”

* * *

When Natasha woke, she couldn’t be certain of the time. She thought it was morning, but it was one of those overcast days when the sky would be the same dark gray no matter what the hour. There was a light rain pattering against the window pane. Natasha arched her back slightly and realized she felt stiff because she hadn’t moved at all during the night for fear of disturbing Clint. He was still sleeping beside her, his breaths slow but steady.

After listening to the rain and Clint’s breathing for a few minutes, reflecting on the events of the previous day, Natasha noticed a scratching sound like a pencil on paper. She turned her head carefully to avoid jostling the pillows and saw that Steve was sitting in a chair near the door, sketching in a notebook. He seemed to enjoy drawing, and from what she had seen he was a pretty good artist. At least it was something quiet he could do while waiting for his friends to wake up. He glanced up and saw her looking at him.

“Good morning,” Steve whispered. “Did you sleep well?”

“Well enough,” she replied softly.

“Dr. Kirby said he wouldn’t normally let a visitor spend the night with a patient, but in your case he made an exception. He can pretend that it was for Barton’s sake, but I think he didn’t want to get into an argument with the Black Widow,” he added with a quiet laugh. On the other side of Natasha, Clint stirred a little. “Might as well wake him before the doctor does,” Steve told her. “He said he’d have to come back to check on him soon.”

Rogers got up to locate the doctor after a nod from Natasha. She carefully sat up and turned to the man by her side. “Time to wake up,” she said swinging her legs over the edge of the bed but twisting so that she faced him.

Clint drew a deep breath as sleep slipped away from him but winced with the effort. His eyes flew open, and for a moment he must have believed he was still in captivity. His pulse and breathing quickened as he struggled to sit up.

“It’s alright, Clint,” Natasha soothed, gently holding him down. His eyes met hers, and his panic disappeared. “You’re safe, remember? We’re onboard the helicarrier.” After a moment, he nodded as the memories of his escape and rescue came back to him. “It’s mid-morning,” she continued. “We found you about 24 hours ago. Dr. Kirby should be here any minute to check on you.”

“Are we going home soon?” Clint asked.

“I don’t think the doctor will want to move you yet.”

“I can handle it.”

“I know.”

The doctor arrived only moments later. He said Clint’s fever had broken, and his respiration was improving. There was still a little concern about how his infected knee was healing, but it showed promise and wasn’t enough reason to keep Clint from returning to Avengers Tower to continue his recovery. Still, when Clint asked how long it would be before he could leave, Dr. Kirby hesitated to give a specific answer.

“Normally, I would never consider sending a patient in your condition home so soon. But I know Stark can provide more than adequate medical care. If I can stick around and keep an eye on you personally, I think there’s no reason we can’t move you to the Tower in a day or two. The main hang-up is going to be Director Fury. He said he wants to debrief you before you leave the helicarrier.”

“No way,” Natasha protested from where she now stood near the window. “It’s too soon.”

“He wants to know what happened back there,” Clint stated flatly.

“You almost died yesterday,” she retorted. “ _That’s_ what happened. The report can wait.”

“I don’t like it any more than you do. Do you think I want to talk about what happened? I don’t even like to _think_ about it. But I want to go home, and I have to finish my job first. This is part of the job.”

“Damn it, Clint. When are you going to learn to put your own well-being before the job?”

Steve spoke up from the doorway. “Is this about the debriefing or the fact that he asked for that mission in the first place?” Natasha glared at him.

Clint looked a little confused, then asked, “You know I volunteered for the mission?”

“Fury told us,” Steve said. “You heard it involved Oduamadi and had to go in there yourself. Never considered that it might be a trap.”

“I was hoping to get some information on him, not—”

“Not what?” Natasha demanded. “Not to get yourself captured? Tortured? Killed? Because a warlord with a personal vendetta against you would never plan something like that, huh?”

“Nat,” Clint began, but she cut him off again.

“You need to _think_ before you act, Clint. You need to be more careful.” The hurt in her eyes made his heart sink. “You aren’t the only one who suffered these last few weeks.” Before he could respond, Natasha stalked out of the room. Steve decided it was prudent to avoid eye contact and step aside to let her pass.

“What was that all about?” Clint wondered aloud once she was gone. Natasha was his partner, his friend, even his lover. He expected her to worry about his safety, but she didn’t usually go off like that. They both knew and accepted the risks that came with their line of work. Rogers and Kirby just shrugged and said nothing, but Clint had the feeling they knew more than they were letting on.

* * *

Clint was dozing again when a light knock woke him, and Tony poked his head in the door. “See, he’s awake,” he told Bruce as the pair stepped into the room.

“Am now,” Clint grumbled. He struggled to push himself up onto his elbows. Bruce hurried over and helped to prop him up with a few pillows. “Thanks,” Clint said. “What brings you two by?”

“Actually,” Tony said, taking the seat by the window, “we just passed the gym. I thought maybe you could tell us why Romanoff’s in there trying to kill a punching bag.”

“She wasn’t very happy to hear that Director Fury wants to debrief me before I can leave the helicarrier.”

“Are you ready for that?” Bruce asked. “Why’s he in such a hurry?”

Clint shrugged. “Maybe he just wants to get it out of the way. I know I do.”

“And that’s all Natasha’s upset about?” Tony pressed, setting aside any remarks he wanted to make about Nick Fury’s motives.

“Well, then she went into this rant about how I put the job before my own safety. She thinks I wasn’t careful enough, considering the background I have with Oduamadi.”

“Which you didn’t mention to any of us,” Tony pointed out.

“It was _my_ score to settle,” Clint growled. He didn’t see why everyone else was so concerned about him all of a sudden. He might be an Avenger, but he was also still a SHIELD agent with missions of his own. _I get captured just one time_ , he thought, _and now they think I can’t take care of myself?_

Bruce said, “I know it’s a hard thing for loners like us to get used to, but we are a team now. If Tony and I can accept that, then so can you.”

Stark leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his knees. “So you and Natasha didn’t talk about anything else?”

“Tony,” Bruce snapped in warning.

“You need to know everything Nat and I talk about?” Clint began, but then he remembered that conversation on the flight to Africa weeks ago. He had decided then to tell Natasha that their relationship shouldn’t be a secret anymore, that they should be a proper couple. “Oh, you mean about…” He glanced over at Bruce.

“Don’t worry,” Tony said, “everyone knows you two are a couple now. You didn’t expect me to wait until you got back to tell everyone did you?”

Clint chuckled but winced as the movement shook his broken ribs. “I thought you weren’t going to tell.”

“Yeah, well,” Tony shrugged. “After a few weeks of wondering if you were even alive…”

Clint rolled his eyes. “Well, getting her to admit we’re a couple hasn’t been the first thing on my mind lately.”

“Hmm… maybe not. But I have a feeling that’ll come up soon.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Bruce cut the conversation short, worried that Tony wouldn’t be able to help himself. “It means that you and Natasha should talk… when she’s done sulking. Meanwhile, we should really get going.”

“Like you have anywhere to go,” Clint remarked. Banner was already getting up and giving Stark a meaningful look. “Come on, guys,” Clint pleaded, “why does everyone seem to be circling something important? It’s like everyone’s got this secret they’re all keeping from me.”

“You’re being paranoid,” Bruce tried, but Clint was only looking at Tony.

Stark buckled under the pressure. “Okay, you’ve got us. And I’d love to tell you everything, I _really_ would—just for my own amusement, mind you, and not really for your sake. But… I can’t,” he conceded.

Clint frowned. “Bruce?”

Banner shrugged. “Sorry,” he said sincerely, “but it’s not our secret to tell.”

Clint exaggerated his frustration by dramatically throwing himself back into his pillows. “Fine,” he said, staring up at the ceiling. “Go. I’ll get someone else to tell me what’s going on.”

Tony started to open his mouth again. If Clint was going to hear the news from anyone other than Natasha, he _really_ wanted it to be him. But Bruce grasped his arm and practically pulled him from the room.


	10. Chapter 10

Natasha couldn’t stay away for long, especially when she knew that in Clint’s position, she would have done the same thing. There were bitter foes from her past about whom she had never told her partner, and jobs she would not hesitate to finish personally if given the chance. She had as much to learn as he did when it came to being part of a team. And they were more than that—they were part of a family now, not just the pair of them and their unborn child, but also this makeshift family called the Avengers.

By the time she had returned to Clint’s room, Thor was watching over him and trying to get him to eat something. “Jane suggested that you start with something called Jell-O,” the god was saying as he studied the tray of food he had set before his friend. “She said it is usually the most appealing hospital food. I cannot understand why the ill should be offered such unpalatable meals. On Asgard, wounded warriors are fed very well. What you need, my friend, is some roasted meat and a flagon of mead.”

Clint poked at his unidentifiable entree with a fork, then followed Thor’s advice and started with the cup of green gelatin. “Yeah, good luck finding any of that around here,” the archer scoffed.

Natasha couldn’t help snickering, and Clint looked up past Thor to see her in the doorway. He flashed a small smile, but she resumed a stern look that told him she still thought it was his own fault he was in the infirmary eating Jell-O.

* * *

The few remaining times that Clint saw Natasha that day, there was always at least one other person in the room. He wanted to talk to her privately, but she still seemed a little upset with him so there was hardly any point in telling everyone to leave them alone—she would probably just use the opportunity tell him off again. Besides, he wasn’t sure how to ask her about this secret which everyone else seemed to be keeping from him but which no one wanted to divulge. Maybe he _was_ being paranoid. Maybe it wasn’t anything at all, or at least not anything as important as he imagined.

He hardly had time to worry about it anyway. Nick Fury and Maria Hill stopped by that afternoon to see how their agent was recovering. While Natasha stood silently in the corner with her arms crossed, Clint requested that he be allowed to give a full report as soon as possible. Fury agreed and promised to return the next day. Later, Natasha voiced that it seemed odd that the Director would handle this personally, but Clint pointed out that a lot of resources had been spent on a three-week search for him because of this mission.

Now it dawned on Clint that this report meant recounting everything he could remember from the moment he and Tony arrived in Lagos over three weeks ago until he passed out just a day earlier while being rushed toward the medical jet. It required recalling all of the questions he had been asked during his days of interrogation and any information he might have given up. And worst of all, he would have to relive the helplessness he had felt during those weeks alone in that cell and the torture from which he was still suffering. Clint tried to prepare himself for all of this and so spent the rest of the day brooding wordlessly.

He slept well that night thanks to one last good dose of medicine, but the doctor warned that he would have to ease up on the drugs in the morning so Clint would be lucid enough to give a proper report in the afternoon. At some point during the night he woke to find Natasha sleeping beside him again, but there was no sign of her in the morning, and he wasn’t sure if it had been a dream.

Nick Fury arrived early in the afternoon with another agent carrying a voice recorder, a notebook, and a small stack of files. They sent Banner and Romanoff out of the room, though Dr. Kirby insisted on staying to monitor his patient’s condition, and spent the next hour questioning Barton. Clint adopted his usual stoic debriefing mask and told them all he could about the past three weeks. He didn’t remember everything Oduamadi had asked him during interrogations. However, he was adamant that he hadn’t told him anything of value, and fortunately Fury seemed to believe him. Or maybe he’d heard the same from Oduamadi already—Clint suspected that the Director had questioned their prisoner already. Describing the torture was a little more difficult for Clint to do without emotion, especially since the cutback on his meds meant that he could once again feel the agonizing effect of every blow.

* * *

Natasha thought that some good might come from the debriefing—getting it out of the way should have put Clint in a good mood. But that was not the case. When the SHIELD agents and doctor left, she slipped back through his door and found him sitting, propped up by pillows and turned toward the window. She knew her long-time partner well enough to sense the melancholy that had settled upon him.

“Clint, are you alright?” She took a few tentative steps into the room. She hadn’t seen him in a mood like this since the day he had awoken from Loki’s spell.

Clint turned to look at her, and she hated the forlorn look in his eyes. He shifted his weight so he could face her more easily, wincing as he tried to move his right leg. The lower dose of medication hadn’t been doing much for the pain, and whatever he’d been given when the questioning was over hadn’t kicked in yet.

“You’re in pain. I can get the doctor back.”

“No, I’m alright.”

“Clint, you don’t have to punish yourself. I might be mad at you for acting alone on this, but in the end… you did your job well.”

“Yeah, I got the bad guy, his army’s disbanded, maybe the world’s a safer place. But for what? A sense of accomplishment? Or to try to wipe the red off my own ledger,” he said, using the metaphor she sometimes did, “to try to make up for all the bad things I ever did. You’re right, Nat—I always put the job first because I felt like I was doing something good. But when it’s over, what do I have? What can I do now other than tally one more good deed in the list of all the right and wrong I’ve done?”

Natasha came closer, sat in the chair by the bed. “Now you can go home.”

“What home? We live at Stark’s tower now, but you know as well as I do that neither of us really knows what a home is.”

“Avengers Tower _is_ our home now... because it’s where we’re going to be a family. That’s why you need to pull through this time. That’s what you have to live for.”

“You’re not going to give me the ‘Avengers are a family now’ speech, are you? I already got that from Tony and Bruce.”

“I don’t mean the team. I mean us.”

“Us? I didn’t think you wanted _us_. I didn’t think you wanted everyone around here knowing that the Black Widow needs someone.”

“But I do need you, Clint.” He didn’t respond, didn’t even meet her gaze, and she took a deep breath, willing herself to just say it while she had the opportunity and the resolve. “Our child needs you.”

He looked up at her, taken aback. “What?”

“I’m pregnant.”

“You’re… what?” Maybe the pain was getting to him more than he’d realized. Or maybe that last round of drugs had been a bit too strong. “You’re joking, right? Tony put you up to this…”

She just gave him a look that said, ‘I wouldn’t joke about this and you know it.’

Clint ran his hands down his face, trying to comprehend what she was telling him. “You’re... we’re...”

She nodded encouragingly, but then his eyes fluttered shut and he slumped back against the pillows.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Natasha muttered.

Outside in the hallway, Rogers and Thor pressed their ears closer to the door, trying to figure out what was going on. Somewhere in a lab he and a reluctant Banner had commandeered so they could hack into the surveillance camera feed, Tony Stark was practically jumping up and down. If he had his way, he would never let Clint forget this moment. But Bruce reminded him that if the Black Widow ever learned that the team had been eavesdropping on this particular conversation, they would all be dead.

* * *

Natasha sat quietly for a while, but she quickly got tired of waiting for Clint to reawaken. She impatiently turned sideways in her seat, throwing her legs over the armrest. After a few minutes of idly swinging her feet in the air, she gave Clint a few swift kicks in the arm. He groaned, and she promptly went back to sitting properly in her chair.

“Stop hitting me…” Clint moaned as he opened his eyes. “Why were you hitting me?”

“I had to wake you up somehow.” A smile flickered across Natasha’s face, and Clint marveled that such a method was her first choice to wake him. “You fainted.”

“Did not.”

“Did too. Not sure if it was shock or pain or the drugs finally kicking in, but you definitely passed out.”

“Hmph… Passed out, maybe, but I didn’t _faint_. And I’m not shocked. I’m just… okay, shock is actually a good word for it.” He pushed himself a little more upright. “You… you’re sure you’re pregnant?”

“I found out just before you disappeared. Trust me—there is no question at this point.” He nodded. “Clint, you’re going to be a father.”

Clint closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Oh my God…” he murmured.

Natasha moved from the chair to sit on the edge of his bed. She was dying to know how he felt about this. “Well, say something, Clint.”

He looked back up at her. “Oh my God…”

“Something other than that.”

He reached out and took both of her hands in his own. “We’re going to have a baby,” he said at last with a small smile. “Nat, I… I never thought we would…”

“Yeah, it wasn’t exactly something I had planned either,” she agreed. “But… you’re okay with it?”

“Okay? Of course I am. I’m more than okay.” He tilted his head inquisitively. “Are you?”

Natasha bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I think I am now. I wasn’t sure at first. I don’t know if I can be a good mother.”

Clint released one of her hands to reach up and touch her cheek lovingly. “Yes, you can. I know it.”

“That’s why I need you. You’ve always believed in me when no one else did, when I didn’t even have faith in myself. Clint, I was so afraid I would have to do this alone. I need your confidence now.” He pulled her toward him and kissed her, and she smiled as she drew back. She was still so unsure about the future, but now that he was with her, she knew everything would be alright.

“Nat?” Clint whispered.

“Hmm?”

“I think I’m gonna pass out again.” He didn’t feel his injuries anymore, but with the painlessness came drowsiness.

“Those drugs are kicking your butt, aren’t they?” she asked, removing the extra pillows and letting him lie back. She wanted to talk to him more about the baby, but he still looked so weak and tired.

He chuckled. “Better than the pain kicking my butt,” he mumbled. His eyelids began to droop. “Don’t… don’t go anywhere… ‘kay?”

Natasha kissed his cheek. “I’ll be right here,” she whispered.


	11. Chapter 11

Natasha was still there when Clint woke a few hours later; but so was Rogers, who stood over him until he ate about half of the dinner set before him. Then the doctor showed up to check on him and to immobilize his knee in a brace since it was continuing to heal relatively well with no more sign of infection.

“So when can I get out of here?” Clint inquired.

“I’d like to keep you one more day before sending you over to Avengers Tower,” Dr. Kirby said hesitantly. “I know you think you’re a super hero, but you just had surgery—”

“Doc, I don’t mean getting off the helicarrier. As much as I’d like that, right now I’d settle for getting out of this room. I just spent three weeks staring at the same four walls.”

“We’ll see about getting you into a wheelchair tomorrow,” the doctor conceded, “so you can get out and about for a little while.”

Clint didn’t talk much after Dr. Kirby left. To be honest, he needed a little time to himself—to process what Natasha had revealed earlier, to understand how his life had changed. At the same time, he didn’t want to be alone after what he’d just gone through, and his friends seemed to understand. They assured the doctor that only one at a time would stay during the night and that they wouldn’t disturb him. With some backing from Rogers and Banner, who had stopped in just to say hi, Clint convinced Natasha to go back to her quarters and get a good night’s sleep. Bruce offered to walk with her, and Steve agreed to stay for the evening.

At first, Clint was content to sit in silence. But after a while, he was feeling more bored than tired, and he tried to strike up conversation. He started with the date and day of the week, which he realized he did not know, then asked about anything he may have missed after weeks of not watching the news. Steve admitted that he could report only that no major catastrophes had taken place around the globe—he was a little out of touch too because all his time had been devoted to searching for his missing teammate. “Thanks again for that,” Clint added quietly. Steve just nodded and pointed out that Clint would have done the same for any other captured Avenger.

“It seems there’s just one bit of news I needed to know,” Clint said. “And you wouldn’t have told me anyway.”

“I’m guessing Natasha told you then?” Steve asked, not wanting to reveal that he had overheard most of the couple’s conversation earlier.

Clint nodded. “I’m going to be a father,” he said, sounding a bit bewildered by that statement. “Still trying to get my head around that fact. And I imagine,” he continued, the disappointment evident in his voice, “I’m the last one to find out.”

Steve shook his head. “It’s just the team, the doctor, Director Fury, and I think, Agent Hill. Plus, Pepper Potts, who is actually the _only_ person Natasha confided in. But then she told Stark, who revealed it to the whole team.”

“You’d think Pepper would know better than to tell _him_. Tony Stark couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it.”

“She wasn’t trying to keep it a secret,” Steve pointed out. “She was trying to stop Natasha from putting herself in harm’s way to find you.”

Clint sighed. It was a valid reason to inform the whole team, he supposed. Without pressure from all of them, Natasha might have stubbornly continued risking her life for him.

“I’m the one who insisted she report it to Director Fury,” Steve continued.

“How’d _he_ take the news?”

“I guess he complained that Romanoff was the last agent he ever thought he’d have to put on maternity leave.”

This elicited a laugh from Hawkeye. If he and Natasha hadn’t planned on having a baby, there was no way Fury had ever considered planning for this scenario. “We like to keep Nick on his toes,” he murmered, a mischievous smile tugging at his lips as he said it. Steve laughed.

There was a moment of silence, not at all awkward but just waiting for one of them to choose the next topic.

“What am I going to do, Steve? I don’t know how to be a father. I barely remember my own. How can Natasha and I be good parents when neither of us grew up in a real family?”

“She had the same reservations,” Steve said. “I can only tell you what Stark told her—you won’t have to do it alone. How did he put it? Four super-hero uncles.” Clint smiled at the thought.

“Being alone in this—that’s what scared Natasha. If Oduamadi had gotten his way, if I hadn’t come back alive...”

“We would have looked after her,” Steve affirmed. “That’s what friends are for.”

“It’s nice to have friends,” Clint said with a yawn. “Never really had those either.”

Steve just smiled and insisted that Clint try to get some sleep. He turned off all the lights save a small desk lamp by the chair in the corner, where he sat for the next few hours with his sketchbook in his lap and a pencil in hand.

* * *

“Rise and shine!” It was Tony Stark’s voice. He’d spent the morning waiting for his friend to wake up, but his patience had reached its limit. “Come on, Hawkeye, you’ve been asleep for more than ten hours. You might be laid-up, but this is just laziness.”

“Go away,” Clint moaned, still half asleep.

“Fine, have it your way.” Clint could hear Tony’s voice move away as he spoke. “If you’re going to sleep all day, it’ll be no fun hanging out in here anyway.” He was at the door. Suddenly Clint was afraid he was already gone, walking down the hall.

“Tony, wait!” he called, wide awake now, struggling to sit up while turning toward the door. The window shades had been drawn against the morning sunlight, and so the glow of the arc reactor through Tony’s T-shirt easily caught Clint’s eye.

Stark was still standing in the doorway, and with a few strides, he was back at his friend’s bedside. “Hey, it’s okay,” he soothed. “I was just kidding. You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

Embarrassed by his moment of panic, Clint tried to slow his breathing and regain some composure. “Sorry,” he muttered, “I just…”

“Don’t worry about it. I get it.” Tony sat down in a chair by the bed again. “You’ve spent enough time alone.”

Clint nodded, sighed. “I’ve spent enough time feeling trapped,” he said with a meaningful look.

Just then one of the nurses appeared in the doorway, apparently wondering if Tony had just been looking for her or the doctor when he had stepped halfway into the hall. “Hey,” Tony said before she could even enter the room, “can we see about getting a wheelchair in here?” It was part request, part command; the nurse simply nodded and disappeared.

Getting out of bed and into the chair wasn’t as easy as Clint had hoped, but he managed with Tony’s help. Before long, they were heading down the hall, ignoring whatever the doctor was calling after them about how far they should go and when they should come back. Tony pushed the chair while Clint, who better knew his way around the helicarrier, gave him directions.

Finally, they came to where a hall ended at a small alcove featuring a large window. Clint explained that this was one of his favorite places to hide out between missions. Tony parked the chair to one side of the window and leaned against the opposite wall. For a few minutes, they both just admired the view—the sunlight sparkling on the water, the New York skyline rising over the dark land on the horizon.

“So... I see now why no one wanted to tell me the secret you were all keeping.”

“Natasha would have killed me if I let it slip.” Tony slid down the wall to sit on the floor.

Clint smirked. “You would have deserved it.”

“It might have been worth it, though, to see you faint,” Tony laughed. He just couldn’t help himself.

“What?” Clint gaped.

“Or ‘pass out’ if you think that sounds less girly. Don’t worry, it was probably the drugs.”

“Hey, how do you know about that? Seriously, Tony...”

“Maybe Natasha told me.”

“Yeah, right.” Tony was probably the _last_ person she would tell.

Then Clint remembered that on the SHIELD helicarrier, even medical recovery rooms were equipped with security cameras. “You did _not_ hack into the SHIELD systems just to eavesdrop.”

Tony just grinned playfully. “Nick never has to know,” he said. Then his smile vanished. “And neither does Natasha. Seriously, don’t tell her I overheard.”

“She and I both like our privacy, Tony. I know that seems strange coming from an employee of an intelligence agency, but it’s the truth. If you don’t learn to respect it, I can’t be responsible for what the Black Widow does to you.”

“Fair enough,” Tony grudgingly admitted. After a moment, he nodded toward the distant city. “You two will have your privacy back at Avengers Tower, I promise. We’ll have you home in no time.”

“I’ve never really had a home,” Clint said quietly. “But I guess that’s going to change now.”

Tony nodded. “You won’t be going on any SHIELD missions for a while. It’ll take more time than you’d like to fully recover, and by then you’ll have a newborn. And if Fury won’t give you enough paid time off, I don’t want you to worry about a thing. I’ll make sure you have everything you need. I’m serious about that Tower being home. I want you two to stay, whatever it takes.”

“Thanks, Tony.” Clint didn’t know what else to say, but his friend could see the gratitude in his eyes.

“Except,” Tony added suddenly, “I’m not babysitting. Nope. You’ll have to talk to Pepper about that one.”

Clint chuckled. “I’m sure she would appreciate the practice,” he joked, and it gave him great pleasure to watch Tony squirm uncomfortably for a moment.

Before Tony could come up with a response, footsteps sounded in the hallway behind the pair.

“I knew I’d find you here,” Natasha called as she neared them. Clint had known it was her just from the cadence of her strides. She stepped around the wheelchair so that he could see her better.

“I knew I wouldn’t have to leave a note,” he said with a small smile. Maybe it was the rest and shower and breakfast, or maybe it was the new knowledge that she was carrying his child, but somehow she looked more beautiful to Clint then ever.

“Dr. Kirby wants to know if you’re ready to go home,” she announced.

Hearing her call Avengers Tower home made the idea a fact. Clint was suddenly both anxious and eager to explore this new concept—family.


	12. Chapter 12

Tony felt as though it had been an eternity since he had last laid eyes on Avengers Tower, his new home away from home, though it had only been about a month. The tower shone like a brilliant jewel in the bright midday sun. He could already see Pepper rushing across the penthouse lounge toward him as he lowered toward his personal landing pad where machines automatically began removing his armor. “Tony!” she cried, running up the steps while he walked toward her. The last pieces of armor had only just been removed when the red-head threw her arms around him. “I missed you,” she breathed.

Tony smiled and held her close. “I missed you too.” No smart remarks, no pretending she didn’t mean the world to him. The words he said were too true for that. Maybe it was because they hadn’t been apart for so long since he himself had been a captive in Afghanistan. Or maybe it was because he had seen how much Clint and Natasha had gone through this past month—what she had risked to find him, what he had gone through just to see her again. All Tony Stark wanted now was to have the woman he loved close to him.

Tony put his hands on Pepper’s shoulders and pushed her back so that they stood face-to-face. “The rest of the team will be here soon,” he said in his most businesslike tone of voice. “Is everything ready?”

“We’re all set,” she said with a nod. “Monitors, medicines, a wheelchair, and everything else that the doctor requested; plus a guest suite is ready for Lee.” It took a moment for Tony to realize that by ‘Lee’, she meant Dr. Kirby. “It— it’s starting to look like a hospital down there, but I did my best to make it feel like home.”

“Clint doesn’t like hospitals any more than the next person, but anything’s better than the helicarrier,” Tony pointed out. “At least here, he’ll be surrounded by friends rather than acquaintances. And the food is better.”

“But… does he really need all of that medical equipment?” Pepper wondered. “Is he really that bad?”

“Well, just so you’re prepared, he still looks pretty bad. He wasn’t in good shape when we found him. But I don’t want you to get too upset when you see him. He’s gonna be fine.”

“Tony, he was tortured for weeks and nearly beaten to death. Then after you found him only days ago, he almost died on the way to emergency surgery.”

“Yeah, but my point is this: Clint Barton is tough. He’s the strongest person I know... besides Thor and Captain America—and gods and super soldiers don’t count.”

“You’re right,” Pepper agreed. “Besides, he has to be here for his family now. If that doesn’t give him strength, I don’t know what will.”

With a crack of thunder, Thor dropped from the sky. He beamed at Pepper. “It is good to see you again,” he said, pulling her into a hug. Then he turned to Tony. “Have the others not arrived?”

“Not yet, but they should be here any minute.” Tony noticed that Thor held a small package in one hand. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing. “A present for Hawkeye?”

Thor nodded and held up the object in question. It looked like a paperback wrapped in plain brown paper. “A gift from Jane Foster,” the god declared. “She also sends greetings to Pepper and the other Avengers.”

“You know, she is welcome to visit anytime she—”

“There they are!” Pepper exclaimed, cutting him off. The quinjet carrying the rest of the team was flying low over the city, swooping gradually toward the landing pad a story below. Minutes later, they were all filing off the jet. Dr. Kirby came first, followed by Banner and Rogers, who were both carrying luggage for the doctor. Then Natasha carefully pushed Clint’s wheelchair down the ramp. He definitely looked much better than he had the previous week, but Tony was glad he had given Pepper a heads-up. Even after his reassurances, she looked more than a little concerned.

“Just some cuts and bruises,” Tony whispered to her.

“And broken bones and an infection,” she added, though even as she said it, she felt sure that Barton was no stranger to such injuries. He actually looked as though he didn’t even notice his own poor condition. Pepper smiled at him as he was wheeled toward her, and he returned the smile shyly but without hesitation.

“It’s good to see you, Pepper.”

“Clint, I’m so glad you’re okay. Welcome home!”

All of the Avengers were happy to be back. After a brief exchange beside the quinjet, they scattered to their own floors to settle in and relax a bit. Tony, Pepper, and Dr. Kirby took Barton to his room. The doctor started looking over the equipment, making sure everything was in order. Tony pushed Clint’s wheelchair through the door and stopped dead in his tracks—Pepper was following and nearly collided with him. The room was simple, not too cozy, just Barton’s style. But the top of the dresser and the window sill were lined with about half a dozen floral arrangements, and several cards lay unopened on the bedside table.

“You put flowers in his room?” Tony asked in disbelief.

“If he’s going to be spending a lot of time in here, he might as well have some flowers to look at,” Pepper retorted, brushing past him. “You know, that’s what you do for people who are in the hospital, Tony.”

“Yeah, for _other_ people,” he protested, “not Hawkeye. And he’s not in the hospital. Wasn’t that the point?”

“They’re nice, Pepper,” Clint interrupted quietly. “Thank you.”

Pepper smiled warmly, then walked over to the baskets of flowers by the window. “They’re not all from me,” she said. “Those are.” (She pointed to a brightly colored bouquet in a tall vase.) “And that basket is from Jane…” (She double-checked the card tucked in with the violet flowers.) “…oh, and Darcy. But, honestly, the rest are from people in SHIELD, though some didn’t give their names.”

“Aww, I didn’t know you had so many friends,” Tony teased, pushing Clint over to the bed, “and secret admirers too. I’ll bet Natasha’s jealous.” Clint ignored him; Pepper rolled her eyes.

Just then Natasha appeared in the doorway, and like usual, Clint wondered how long she had been listening. She didn’t say anything about the flowers and cards though, just offered her hand and took his weight as he awkwardly got to his feet.

“Alright,” Lee spoke up, clapping his hands together, “let’s get you in bed. I want you to rest.”

“Oh, come on,” Barton argued, “Let me stretch my legs a bit, will you? I just got home.”

“I know now that you’re back, you’d like to return to your usual routine,” the doctor said, “but life isn’t going to be normal for you for some time. I need you to take it easy. I shouldn’t have even let you fly here with a recently-punctured lung. But I did you a favor by letting you come home. Now I need you to meet me halfway and _stay off that leg_.”

Clint sighed and nodded reluctantly. It took both the doctor and Tony to get him into the bed, but Natasha insisted that he would be moving about on his own in no time _if he would just listen to the doctor_. This earned her a resentful scowl from the archer. Once he was satisfied that his patient was going to stay put, Dr. Kirby retreated to the guest room down the hall.

“So,” Pepper began, looking between Clint and Natasha, “I hear the two of you finally had a talk...”

Natasha nodded. “I told him,” she said simply.

“And how did he take the news? I’ve got to know.”

Tony smirked. He desperately wanted to blurt out that Clint had fainted. “He, uh… he took it pretty well,” he said instead. His life currently depended on Natasha _not_ learning that he had listened in on her private conversation with Clint. And Clint’s cooperation in keeping that a secret depended on Tony never again bringing up his embarrassing reaction, even if the pain or drugs were to blame. “A bit of a shock, you can imagine... but a good one, right, Clint?”

Pepper excused herself after a time, promising Clint that she would make whatever he wanted for dinner. At the door, she nearly collided with Thor, who moved aside to let her pass, then took one step into the room and waited to be acknowledged. Clint waved him closer.

Thor cleared his throat, then said, “I visited Jane Foster before I came here.”

“How is she?” Natasha asked.

“She is well. Right now, she is working on a project and cannot leave her research team, but she says she will visit as soon as possible.”

“That would be nice,” Clint said. All of the Avengers were quite fond of Jane. And they all thought that she and Thor made a good couple, though the god hesitated to actually call her his girlfriend.

“She sent a gift with me in the meantime,” Thor said, holding up the parcel Clint and Natasha had both noticed him carrying when they arrived at the tower.

“For me?” Clint asked, a bit surprised.

Thor nodded and handed it over. He, Tony, and Natasha all watched with interest as Clint tore off the wrapping. It was a book, which Tony thought was not top on his list of things Clint might like.

But the archer seemed impressed as he studied the cover. “It’s a guide for first-time fathers,” he chuckled. “So Jane knows too, huh?”

“I did not tell her until after you were informed.”

“I appreciate that.” Clint said, flipping through the book.

“I’m sure he’ll have _plenty_ of time to read,” Natasha said pointedly. Clint smiled to himself. She was once again hinting that she would not let him leave this bed until the doctor granted permission.

“Thor, if you talk to Jane before I get a chance, tell her I said thanks,” Clint said. “She picked the perfect gift. I’m going to need all the parenting advice I can get.”

* * *

Now that they were home, the team quickly fell into their usual routine—occupying themselves until the next time the world needed them. Natasha spent a lot of time with Clint, but now that he was getting better, he had an easier time convincing her to take care of herself as well. Others helped with this, taking turns bringing him meals and keeping him company.

On his second morning back at the tower, Tony and Pepper brought him breakfast. Their normal banter turned into a discussion about how a pregnancy would affect Clint and Natasha.

“They’re both still trying to grasp what this means for the future,” Tony told Pepper with a casual shrug. “But they’ll figure it out.”

“Neither of them seems too willing to talk about it.”

“Neither of them is the type to share feelings.”

“True. But Clint can’t help commenting, whenever it comes up, that he was the _last_ one to find out he’s going to be a father,” Pepper noted. “I wish he wouldn’t—I know it makes Natasha feel guilty, and it’s not her fault things played out the way they did.”

They stepped off the elevator onto Hawkeye’s private floor and started down the hallway. Tony said, “I think he’s still a bit hurt that he missed out on the first few months of the pregnancy. But at least he’ll be here for the next six or seven.”

Pepper nodded. “The first two months aren’t that exciting anyway,” she insisted. She stopped walking, and Tony halted beside her. “And if he hadn’t missed them, I mean if Natasha hadn’t thought he might be dead… well, I can’t be sure she would have made the same choice.”

“Don’t say stuff like that around here,” Tony warned with a cautious glance into Clint’s room to make sure he was still sleeping.

Tony set the tray of food beside Clint’s bed. “Hey, buddy, time to wake up,” he beckoned. “We brought breakfast.”

Clint’s eyes opened instantly. “I’m more interested in hearing what you have to say than in eating,” he said, studying the pair intently as he sat up in his bed.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tony asked, confused.

“I heard you talking,” Clint continued, and Tony mentally cursed the archer’s exceptional hearing. “You know, I was under the impression that before I left, Natasha had been debating _how_ to tell me she was pregnant. Now I’m thinking it was more a question of whether or not to tell me at all. So what’s the story? What choice would Natasha have made if I hadn’t been captured?”

“Uh, oh,” Pepper breathed.

“Now you’ve done it,” Tony muttered.

When no one answered him right away, Clint spoke again. “Was she really going to hide this from me?”

“Pepper was just saying that if you had died back there, you would never have known about the baby,” Tony tried, “because, you know… you’d be dead.”

“That’s not what she said.”

“You know Natasha,” Pepper replied. “She always has two or three back-up plans for every situation. So when she found out she was pregnant, she thought of every possible course of action. That doesn’t mean she seriously considered all of them.”

“It sounds to me like she did.”

“You have to put yourself in her shoes,” Tony insisted.

“No. I don’t. She has no excuse this time. This is one situation where her only option was clear from the start. I deserve to know about my own kid, and she had no right to even _consider_ —”

“I know, Clint,” Pepper soothed. “I agree with you. Perhaps she was being selfish.”

“Yes, she was.”

“But,” Tony said, “you can’t blame her for just thinking—”

“Yes, I can.”

Pepper sighed and shook her head. “I’m done trying to reason with him,” she told Tony.

“Good,” Clint said. “Just get out then.”

“Come on, Clint…” Tony began.

“I mean it! Leave me alone.”

* * *

Tony and Pepper decided that it would be best to keep quiet about what had happened and let Clint work this out in his own time. But it wasn’t an hour before Lee Kirby caught up with Tony outside his lab.

“Stark! Do you want to tell me why I almost got hit in the face with a fork when I stepped into Barton’s room?” the doctor demanded.

Tony did his best to look utterly blameless. “Why do people assume it’s my fault when someone around here throws a tantrum?”

“As far as I know, you’re the last person who spoke to him.”

“Fair enough,” Stark admitted. “Okay, so he may have overheard a comment implying that Natasha had considered hiding the pregnancy from him.”

“Why the heck did you say that in front of him?”

“I didn’t! It was Pepper. And in her defense, we out in the hallway _and_ we thought Clint was asleep.”

“Well, I’ve never seen him so angry,” the doctor said. “I am not going in there again until he calms down. The guy has deadly aim, even throwing silverware from his bed.”

“Just give him time to cool off,” Tony suggested.

* * *

That afternoon, JARVIS interrupted Natasha as she was flipping through the channels on her TV. Clint, who had been the one to suggest that she spend some time relaxing on her own, was now requesting her presence. Without delay, the red-head went straight to the elevator. Once she got to Barton’s room, she found the door wide open.

“Clint? What is it?” she asked, moving to where Clint sat propped up in bed, an untouched plate of pancakes still on the table beside him. He just stared straight ahead; she couldn’t read his expression. “Do you need anything?”

“Yeah, actually,” he said, keeping his voice a little too level. “I do.” He turned toward her. “I need you to look me in the eye and tell me the truth for once.”

Natasha reflexively took a small step back. “What’s this about, Barton?” she asked warily.

“Were you really going to hide this pregnancy from me?”

Clearly, this was not what she had expected him to ask. And she didn’t know how to respond, so she said nothing.

Her silence seemed to turn Clint’s resentment into anger. “Were you?” he demanded.

Nat found her voice at last. “I don’t know where you heard—”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said curtly. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“If it was true that I wanted to hide it from you, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

“That’s right!” Clint exclaimed as if he was just identifying this troublesome truth, though he had clearly been thinking about it for some time. “Lies come naturally to you. You’re still a spy at heart. You can’t help yourself, can you?”

Natasha shook her head. “Clint, you’re the one person—”

“What’s that? The one person you’d never lie to? Because you care. Is that what you’re saying?” Natasha had no reply, but it didn’t matter. Clint continued rambling almost hysterically. “But if you just… _forgot_ to mention that I was a father, pretended it never happened... that might be okay, right?”

“No. I don’t know. It was just… an option.”

“It shouldn’t have been.”

Clint may have had a valid reason to be upset, but Natasha Romanoff did not take well to being told what she should or shouldn’t do. “What did you expect?” she questioned him. “Was I supposed to be okay with this? Was I supposed to throw away my career and become a housewife? What right do you have to—”

“What right do I have?” Clint was sitting up now as if poised to jump from his bed, though he could never have managed it. “I am the father of that baby! And you thought what? That informing me was _optional_?” Natasha said nothing, but her fists were clenched. Clint continued, his voice a little more level now. “Do you want to know what I thought, Nat? I thought we were in this together.”

“We are,” Natasha said, taking another step back as she spoke. “That’s the choice I made.” She turned sharply, her fiery hair flying, and stomped toward the door. She stopped as she was halfway through the door and turned to look at him. “Don’t make me regret it.”

Clint’s new book flew toward her head, but she was already gone. The paperback landed in the hallway with a thud. Clint knew that, try as he might, he would not be able to retrieve it on his own.


	13. Chapter 13

Clint’s brooding gaze was drawn away from the window by the sound of footsteps in the hall. They slowed as they drew near, and Captain Rogers came into view. As always, his old-fashioned haircut and clothing were starkly out-of-place in the modern tower. But Clint never minded; Steve was soft-spoken, patient, polite—respectable traits that seemed less common now than in a past time.

Rogers bent down and retrieved the paperback that lay open on the floor just outside Clint’s room, carefully closing the book. He stepped into the doorway and said temperately, “We’ve resorted to throwing things, I see.”

Clint wanted to snap back with some snide remark that this was none of the captain’s business. But as he looked at his friend, he couldn’t be unkind. Steve was only trying to help, and his observation certainly wasn’t wrong. So instead, Barton mumbled, “Had a bit of an argument with Natasha. I’m sure you’ve heard all about it by now.”

Steve didn’t deny it. News traveled fast in the Avengers tower. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, Captain, I really don’t.”

“Do you want me to go?”

Clint shrugged noncommittally. “Stay if you want. Just shut the door, would you?”

Steve stepped into the room and closed the door as instructed. Then he walked over and laid Clint’s book on the bedside table before taking a seat in a nearby chair. “You know,” he said after a moment, “this isn’t easy for Natasha either.”

Clint was looking out the window again. He didn’t turn toward the captain, but he slowly nodded. “I know.”

Steve was surprised that his comment did not evoke a more emotional response. It was clear to him now that Clint’s previous outburst was more about pent-up frustration at his whole situation than it was about assigning blame. Natasha was the most appropriate target when he needed to vent, but in truth, Clint was probably angrier with himself than with her.

There was a moment of silence, then a knock at the door.

“Now what?” Clint groaned.

“It is Thor,” the god thundered through the still-closed door. “The voice known as JARVIS told me that you requested my presence.”

“Uh, yeah,” Clint muttered, glancing uncomfortably at Rogers. “Come in,” he called. Thor entered the room and smiled in greeting.

Steve frowned. “So you don’t want to talk to me, but you asked for Thor?” Clint just shrugged again. Steve continued, “I know I’m not an expert on women, but I’m not sure Thor knows much more about relationships…”

“I told you I don’t want to talk,” Clint growled, “not to you, not to Thor, not to _anyone_.” Then he added in a milder tone, “Not yet anyway. That’s why I told JARVIS to get Thor. He prefers action to words, and I don’t think he’s afraid to break a few rules.”

“And what rules do you propose we break?” Thor asked almost eagerly, ignoring the disapproving look on Captain Rogers’ face.

“You want him to help you sneak out of here even though Dr. Kirby told you to rest,” Steve guessed.

“I’m not planning to go far—just to the shooting range down the hall.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Steve scolded. “Getting out of this room is one thing, but you stay out of that shooting range. You can’t be on your feet, and you shouldn’t put any strain on those broken ribs.”

“Come on, Captain,” Clint pleaded. “Everyone has their way of coping around here—this is mine. _I need my bow._ ”

Steve was silent for a moment, studying the other two. Clint realized that he was holding his breath. Finally, the captain heaved a sigh and said, “Fine. If it means that much to you, I won’t stand in your way. But you have to promise that you’ll take it slow.”

Clint nodded in agreement, and the others helped him into a wheelchair. He wheeled himself out of the room, Thor falling into stride beside him and Steve trailing behind, ready to run interference if needed.

Doctor Kirby’s guest room lay between Clint’s room and the archery range, and his door was open. Thor had taken over pushing the wheelchair, and now Steve put a hand on his arm, holding him back. The captain snuck up to the doorway to peek inside, planning to distract the doctor if necessary while the others snuck by.

Lee was sitting in an armchair near his window, reading a book. Steve waved Thor past, hoping that if they were quiet enough, the doctor wouldn’t look up. The pair didn’t make a sound as they passed, but Thor was too large to stay invisible. Lee must have noticed the movement in his peripheral vision.

“Whoa!” the doctor called, leaping to his feet, and tossing his book aside. “What’s going on here?”

Thor glanced over, realizing they’d been seen. He hesitated and slowed for a moment, then rushed ahead, pushing Clint as fast as he could.

“Clint Barton! Where do you think you’re going?” Lee called after them. Steve stepped into the doorway, trying to block his path and calm him down at the same time.

“Go!” Clint urged Thor. “Just go!”

The doctor was in the doorway now, ignoring Steve as the captain shook his head in warning. “Thor, you wheel him straight back to his room!”

“Don’t listen to him,” Clint hissed. With a mischievous smile, Thor continued racing down the hall.

Dr. Kirby had pushed past Captain Rogers, and was starting to trail after his run-away patient at a brisk walk. “Do I have to sedate you to get you to stay in bed?” he shouted.

Suddenly there was a hand on his shoulder. “Let it go, doc,” Steve said. “You can’t win this one.”

Lee stopped and turned to the captain. “I’m not keeping him locked up in his room just out of spite, you know. It’s for his own good. He’s not a super soldier.”

“I know,” Steve soothed. “We’re all looking out for him, I promise. Just… think of this as therapy,” he suggested. The doctor sighed, and Steve read the meaning in his pleading expression. “I’ll make sure he takes it easy.”

* * *

“What now?” Thor asked as he wheeled Hawkeye into his archery range. Surveying the location, he realized that he had never before seen Clint’s private range. He stood in a small front section with weapons stored on the walls to the left and right, and a line on the floor ahead indicated the place where the archer should stand. The shooting range stretched straight ahead of this line to a wall covered with thick foamy material. It was a very simple, functional room with no furniture or decoration.

The range was relatively small—after all, it was intended only for Clint’s private use. However it was much more high-tech than a standard range, allowing Hawkeye to shoot at various moving targets at any distance, and also more durable since he sometimes tested new arrowheads here (despite JARVIS’s objections to the use of explosives inside the building).

Clint did not respond to Thor’s question, and the Asgardian was not even sure he had heard. His hands dropped to the wheels of his chair while his eyes stayed fixed on one of the walls where his bows and arrows were stored. He wheeled himself straight to the rack of bows where his best recurve hung above the rest. It was the bow he had brought on the mission to Lagos, the one his captors had left behind in the warehouse. Until now, he hadn’t been sure what had become of it.

Steve’s voice sounded from the doorway to Clint’s right. “She brought it back for you. Said it’s your favorite bow and you’d want it back when you came home.”

Clint was struggling to stand, to reach the bow. Thor put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in the chair, reached over his head, and retrieved the bow for him. Hawkeye smiled as his hand gripped the familiar curve of the handle. It was custom-made for him, felt so natural in his grasp that it was almost an extension of his own body.

“Grab me some arrows, would you?”

Steve shook his head. “You’re not firing _that_ bow,” he said firmly. “I know what the pull-back weight is on that one, and I promised Dr. Kirby I’d make you take it easy.”

Clint sighed but nodded. He handed his recurve bow back to Steve and pointed out a lighter compound.

Simple practice shooting proved to be a little more painful than Clint had hoped. He wheeled himself into position and, ignoring some half-hearted protests from Rogers, cautiously got to his feet. Shifting as much weight to his good leg as he could, he raised his bow and gave a test pull. Thor handed him an arrow, and he fired it into the far wall of the range. He winced slightly as his bandaged ribs resisted the movement, but he made no sound.

After a few more practice shots, he decided to try aiming for some real targets. Tony had fun with Clint’s targets from time to time. Usually, they were enlarged images of Loki’s head—with a bull’s-eye right between his eyes. This time, when JARVIS slid the targets into position, Clint wasn’t surprised to see Joseph Oduamadi staring at him from across the range.

“That’s sick,” Rogers muttered as his friend buried an arrow in the target’s eye without hesitation.

Clint shrugged. “Tony seems to think it’s therapeutic.”

* * *

“What you two need is serious therapy,” Dr. Banner observed, adjusting his glasses and leaning back in his chair.

“You’re one to talk,” Natasha countered.

The two were sitting in her living room, Natasha on the sofa and Bruce in an armchair facing her. Natasha had related the entire argument from earlier in the day, hoping that Bruce’s usual composure and contemplation might afford some helpful advice.

Bruce chuckled at Natasha’s retort. “You have a point,” he agreed. “But I’m just saying—”

She held up a hand to cut him off. “I know, I know,” she admitted. “A little couples’ therapy might be in order—individual sessions too, while I’m being honest—but that’s not really how Clint or I deal with things.”

“Well ignoring a problem won’t make it go away. And neither will arguing about it.”

“We’ll talk,” Natasha promised. “But the timing isn’t right yet.”

Bruce nodded. “Clint needs to clear his head first, I think. Captain Rogers said he was going to try to calm him down this afternoon.”

“I hope Steve has more luck than I did. Clint’s not always good at stepping back and looking at things from someone else’s point of view. It’s not that he’s self-centered or anything; he just—”

Suddenly Pepper burst into the room. “There you are!” she declared, moving to sit on a chair opposite Natasha. She didn’t even think to ask if she was interrupting anything. In fact, she didn’t even acknowledge that Dr. Banner was in the room, she was so focused on talking to Natasha. “I heard you and Clint really got into it,” she said. “I’m so sorry! If I had just kept my mouth shut…”

The Black Widow shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. That argument was coming sooner or later. Might as well get it out of the way now.”

“No,” Pepper insisted, “this is crazy. Clint’s being completely unreasonable! How can he blame you for something you didn’t even do?”

“Pepper, you’re the one I talked to… about what I should do. You know as well as anyone that hiding the pregnancy from him _was_ an option.”

“But how does he really know what you were thinking? How can he judge you?”

Pepper was clearly upset, but Natasha did not show a hint of anger or hurt. She said simply, “Clint Barton knows me better than any of you. If anyone in the world can judge me, it’s him.”

* * *

“Put yourselves in my shoes,” Hawkeye said as he loosed another arrow. “How do you think _you_ would feel?”

“You have some right to be angry,” Thor admitted. “No one denies that she would have been wrong to lie to you.”

“But you have to put things in perspective,” Steve pointed out. “She made the right choice in the end. Doesn’t that count for something?”

“Everyone seems to agree that she was wrong, but they still keep defending her,” Clint complained.

“That’s because we all think you’re overreacting.”

“Well, none of you know her like I do.”

“Okay. Point taken.” Steve folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the wall. “But even if you’re right, even if her decision was a much closer call than we realize, it’s in the past now.”

“Oh, I see. You, of all people, are going to tell me _the past_ doesn’t matter.” Clint fired another arrow, then finally looked Steve in the eye.

The man-out-of-time did not react to his friend’s sarcasm.

His expression couldn’t have been more serious. “Your future is more important.”

Clint sighed, nocked another arrow, and took a very long time aiming at another picture of Oduamadi.

* * *

After a moment of silence Bruce said, “He’s upset about a lot more than the baby, Pepper. He was in captivity for weeks. He almost died. And after everything he’s been through, he still has a long road ahead—a slow physical and emotional recovery, all while trying to prepare for something he never expected.”

“Fatherhood,” Natasha whispered. She sighed. “Barton doesn’t like uncertainty. He wants things to go according to plan, and his plan _never_ involved parenthood.” Too bad he’d tossed his new book on the subject across his bedroom.

Pepper pursed her lips. “Maybe you’re both right,” she admitted. “Still, he could be less… insufferable. No one likes self-pity.”

* * *

Clint had no choice but to quit practice when his injured leg suddenly seemed it couldn’t hold him anymore. He would have fallen if the brace hadn’t stopped his knee from buckling. Instead, he had to lean on his bow and motion for Thor to move the wheelchair up behind him. With a groan of both pain and frustration, he dropped into the chair, muttering a few curses under his breath.

“You alright?” Rogers asked.

Clint didn’t answer at first. Thor took his bow and returned it to its place on the wall. “It just feels like I’ll never be back in action.”

“Well, you’re not going to recover overnight, and feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help anything.”

“I don’t think this little outing helped, either. But I guess at the time, I thought my sanity was worth more than my knee.”

The captain offered a sympathetic smile. “We’ll get you back to your room and see if the doc will give you something.”

Clint laughed. “He’ll just tell me this is my own fault.”

“It is,” Thor said as he began to wheel his friend back to his room.


	14. Chapter 14

It might have been the calming effect of his archery practice or maybe just exhaustion from the extra physical exertion, to which his body had grown unaccustomed lately. Whatever the case, Clint slept better than he had in weeks. He had bad dreams, but they didn’t compare to the nightmares that had begun to plague his nights. He woke early as the sun cast its first rays into his room. For a time, the world felt very peaceful and still. But it wasn’t long before he recalled the disturbed dreams, and his mind was crowded with troubled thoughts. Various flashbacks of his captivity and concerns for his future wrestled for his attention, all while the ache in his leg grew more and more intense. Clint closed his eyes, forcing himself to take deep, calming breaths. His battered ribs protested, but his racing thoughts slowed. _Just take it one day at a time_ , he told himself as he turned on the TV for distraction.

Dr. Kirby peeked into the room after a while and found his patient watching a news channel with disinterest. When he had Barton’s attention (and felt sure that he was not going to be hit by any projectiles), the doctor stepped through the doorway and held up a pair of crutches. “Since you seem to be in such a hurry to get on your feet,” he said.

Clint clicked off the television. “Look, doc, about yesterday… I know you were mad at me, and I never meant to…”

“It’s alright,” Lee answered immediately. “I was angry with you at first, but Rogers and I had a long talk, and I think I understand now where you were coming from. Anyway, I trust you learned the consequences of not following my advice,” he added as he began examining Clint’s knee. It was a little swollen and mottled with shades of deep purple and blue. Clint nodded. It was painfully obvious that yesterday’s little excursion had not been his best idea. “Still,” the doctor said reassuringly, “I don’t think you did any real damage.”

Lee sat down for a while and told Clint what to expect for his future recovery, making him promise to be patient and take it slow. “It’ll pay off in the long run,” the doctor insisted. Hawkeye pointed out that he was a sniper, used to being patient and meticulous, but Lee didn’t seem convinced. And who could blame him? Clint’s behavior so far hadn’t illustrated a significant amount of patience. After the doctor left, Barton found himself alone for the rest of the morning. He had to turn the TV back on to break the silence.

Dr. Banner came by with lunch and stuck around to help Clint get started practicing with his new crutches. It wasn’t as easy as Clint would have liked, as much because of his broken ribs as because of his busted knee and awkward brace.

“You’re lucky, you know,” Bruce said a while after Barton had gotten frustrated and sat on his bed with the crutches leaning against the wall.

“How do you figure that?”

“A man doesn’t go through what you did without changing—often for the worse. But you have something positive to look forward to. You have a reason to change for the better.”

Clint was silent for a few minutes, and Bruce waited patiently for him to collect his thoughts. “I can only change so much,” Clint said at last. “Sure, I’ll look at life a little differently from now on, especially as a father, but… I’m still the same person… with the same past and the same issues (plus a few new ones). I can never change who I really am. What if that isn’t good enough? What if I can never be the man she needs?”

“You already are.”

“Whatever,” Barton said dismissively, shaking his head.

“I mean it, Clint. She knows you better than _anyone_ , and that includes all of your ‘issues.’ And clearly, she loves you just as you are. You can’t get luckier than that, my friend.”

“You know,” Clint muttered, “I do believe she loves me. But… she’s never said it.”

“She will when she’s ready.”

* * *

It was late that evening before Clint had another visitor. He was sitting in bed paging through his new book when he heard three short knocks on his door, so light he couldn’t have been blamed for missing them. But he heard, and he didn’t have to ask who it was. “Come in,” he called, marking his page and setting the paperback aside.

Natasha stood in the doorway for a moment, wearing jeans and a loose t-shirt, her hair slightly damp and curling just a little as it fell past her shoulders. Clint smiled, and she returned his smile and came closer to stand beside the foot of his bed.

“Rumor has it you broke out of here and went down to your shooting range,” she began conversationally.

“Yeah, that was yesterday. Kind of old news, Nat.”

“I haven’t been trying to avoid you again if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Really?” Clint retorted. “Because that seems to be your M.O. these days.”

Natasha was a little hurt by his remark, but she didn’t show it for an instant. Instead, she carried on as if she hadn’t heard. “How did it feel to shoot your bow again?”

Clint visibly relaxed. “It felt good,” he said simply. “Thank you,” he added after a moment, “for bringing my bow back. It probably wouldn’t have seemed that important to anyone else. But you understand.” Natasha only nodded in response.

But as thankful as Clint was, one thing was bothering him, and he couldn’t keep it to himself anymore. “I just don’t get it, though,” he continued. “You do things like that, prove that you know me better than anyone, show that you care. But then you always end up pushing me away like I don’t really matter to you. I’m not talking about now; I mean you’ve done it for as long as we’ve known each other. Sometimes I wish you would just decide how you feel and then let me know once you’ve made up your mind.” Natasha didn’t say anything, and Clint continued argumentatively, “You know what I think your problem is? I think you’re afraid of getting hurt, so you hurt other people before they can do it to you. Is that it?”

“I _never_ wanted to hurt you, Clint. But you’re right about one thing. I was afraid; I still am. I just thought if things would stay the way they were before… it might be easier. Good partners always care about each other, but why does it have to get any more complicated than that?”

“Because nothing is ever simple for us,” Barton sighed. “I think, deep down, I knew that if you ever got pregnant, I might never know about it. I just didn’t want to think about that. I guess it hurt to think that you—a part of you, at least—never wanted to start a family with me.”

“It’s not you, Clint. You know that. I never wanted to start a family _ever_ , with anyone. It just never seemed like a good fit for me.”

“I think it’s just what you need.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” she hissed defensively.

“I mean, your whole life, you’ve only ever had to think about yourself. Maybe it’s time to put someone else first, Nat. And, no, I don’t mean me. It’s just… I think once you have children, everything is about them. It might be the kind of purpose you and I have both been searching for.” He added with a sad smile, “Maybe if you give up on love and family, the way we have all these years, you’re missing out on something significant.”

“Love makes you vulnerable,” Natasha insisted. “It may come with some pros, but all I’ve ever really known are the cons. I broke my own rule, Barton, and I let myself care about you too much. And where did that get me? I was an emotional wreck for the past month!”

“Do you have any idea what _I’ve_ been through in the last month?” he asked, his voice soft—sounding hurt rather than angry.

Natasha murmured, “You know I do,” and focused uncomfortably on her folded hands.

Clint studied her for a moment, then looked out the window at the city lights far below. “I’m sorry,” he said. “We both know. We’ve both been captured by the enemy before. But it was just part of the job. Never like this, at least never for me.” He sighed, slightly shaken just by the thought of his recent trauma. “It’s never been so personal.”

“It makes it harder, doesn’t it? Being personal.”

“He didn’t want just any SHILED agent, Nat. He set a trap specifically for me, and he took pleasure from every moment I suffered.” Clint closed his eyes wearily. “I haven’t been sleeping well since I got back. He’s in my dreams, Natasha. It’s like Loki all over again.” She felt her heart sink at his words. She knew he didn’t want pity, but she also knew how bad it had been after Loki. She was probably the only person who had really seen what he had gone through then. Clint opened his eyes, waiting for her to say something.

“I knew what he would do to you,” she said. “I knew as soon as I saw the report on that first mission…” Clint didn’t know what to say, but that didn’t matter because she continued in a more distressed tone, “You don’t know what it was like, Clint, being left behind, not knowing where you were! We all felt helpless! I _knew_ that he was killing you and that he would take his time doing it, but I didn’t know how much time you had or if it was already too late.”

“You really _were_ worried about me, weren’t you?” Clint remarked. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. This fact should have been obvious, but he had honestly never expected Natasha to show such fragility, even to him. And here she was admitting it so openly!

“Worried? God, Barton! You think I was _worried_? That has to be the understatement of the year. I had no idea what I was going to do if I lost you!”

Clint just looked at her, taken aback. All that time in captivity, he had never doubted that his friends would keep searching for him. But he hadn’t imagined just how personal it was for Natasha. But how could he have known? She had never been very clear about what she felt for him. Just a minute ago she had been essentially saying that falling for him had been a mistake on her part.

“I was starting to give up hope,” she admitted when she realized that he was waiting for her to say something more. “I thought you were dead, Clint.” She sunk onto the foot of his bed as if she could no longer stand under the weight of her emotions. She looked past him, out the window, unwilling to make eye contact. “I have never needed anyone in my entire life,” she said, “and the one time I did, you weren’t there… and I was so afraid that you never would be. Because whether I like it or not, I do care and I do need you. I can’t lose you, especially now.”

“I’m sorry, Nat. I’m sorry I didn’t come back to you. I should have been more careful.”

“It isn’t your fault. Not really. But I couldn’t help feeling angry that you were gone, and I had to blame someone. And I just—I spent weeks wishing every day that you hadn’t gone on that mission, that I had stopped you.”

“No, I get it. I know why you were angry with me… for risking my life like that. I could pretend that I thought it wouldn’t be dangerous, but you and I both know that every time we go on a mission, it’s a risk. That’s the nature of working for SHIELD. And we’ve both always accepted that.” Natasha nodded. She knew that he was right. Clint continued, “It never crossed my mind that you might have a real problem with me going on that mission. But then again, I didn’t know exactly what I risked losing this time, did I? If you had just told me—”

“I didn’t know how.”

“—I would never have left you.”

“I know.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Finally Clint said, “Just promise me you won’t hide anything from me again. I know it sounds like I’m asking a lot, but some honesty from you a month ago would have spared us both a lot of pain. So you can lie to anyone else about anything you want, but please just don’t keep any more secrets from me, and I won’t keep any from you.”

Natasha thought for a minute while Clint watched her. She was used to hiding her thoughts and feelings from everyone around her. It might be nice to have one person she could trust with everything. “That sounds fair,” she said at last. She crawled up the bed and sat beside him, wrapping her arms gently around him. She kissed him, then laid her head on his shoulder.

“I’m still mad at you,” she said softly.

Clint smiled. “Good,” he whispered. “Me too.”


	15. Chapter 15

After his second lap around the roof, Hawkeye stopped to lean heavily on his crutches. He couldn’t help thinking that a few months ago, he would have been able to sprint _twice_ as far as he had just hobbled without even being out of breath.

“Almost there,” Natasha offered encouragingly from the doorway a few yards ahead.

“I just need a moment,” he gasped. “Collapsed lung. Remember?”

“Come on,” she coaxed with exaggerated enthusiasm, “you can do it!”

“You know, I really don’t think you have the right personality to be a cheerleader.”

Nat laughed and opened the door that led back inside. “This was all your idea,” she pointed out truthfully.

“Oh, shut up,” Barton growled. But he started shuffling forward once again. He _had_ been the one to suggest going outside. And he had also insisted on using the crutches instead of a wheelchair.

The elevator really wasn’t much farther, though he felt it took him much too long to get there. Even then, Nat wouldn’t let him lean against the wall. “You wanted to do it on your own,” she reminded him.

He straightened and glared at her. “Do you think you could at least hit the button? Or should I operate the elevator on my own too?”

She did as he asked and then leaned back against the wall with a smirk as the door closed.

“I think you’re enjoying this a little too much,” Clint grumbled. He might have had more to say on that subject, but he found it awfully difficult to speak with her lips pressed against his.

* * *

On the common level of the tower, the elevator opened right into the team lounge. Thor and Jane Foster were sitting on a sofa by the fireplace. Tony Stark, standing behind the bar across the room, looked up as Barton hobbled out of the elevator. “Hey, look who’s on his feet!” he exclaimed.

Clint managed a small smile, though he was afraid it came across as more of a grimace, and limped toward the seating area.

“Not for long,” Natasha declared from behind him. “From the way he’s complaining, I think he’s about to pass out.”

“I’m not complaining,” Clint protested.

“Well you sure are making a show of all the huffing and puffing.”

Clint rolled his eyes and dropped into an armchair beside the sofa. “Tony, please tell me you’re already pouring me a drink while you’re over there,” he said as he carefully laid his crutches on the floor beside his chair.

“What would you like?” his friend asked obligingly.

“Something strong.” Tony chuckled and reached for a bottle of whiskey. Clint advised, “That had better be the good stuff, Stark.”

Natasha smiled and walked over to the bar to retrieve the drinks Tony had already poured for Thor and Jane. “I’ll take some vodka,” she called playfully, while she busied herself with delivering a large glass of something that looked like mead to the Asgardian and a smaller mixed drink to his companion. “Make sure it’s Russian.”

“Yeah, sure,” Tony joked, already walking over with his and Clint’s drinks in hand. “Remind me sometime next year.” After handing Clint his drink, Stark instead tossed Natasha the bottle of water he had tucked under his arm.

Clint laughed, downed several gulps of whiskey, and then turned toward Thor and Jane. “Hi, Jane,” he greeted at last. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ignore you. He distracted me.”

He pointed to Tony, who muttered into his glass, “Sure, blame me for your bad manners.”

Jane smiled. “It’s alright,” she said. Stark did make a habit of making himself the center of attention in any and every situation. “It’s really good to see you up and about. From what Thor told me… well, it sounds like this is a big improvement.”

Clint nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is,” he admitted, thinking back to how much worse his condition had been when he first woke up on the helicarrier after surgery. He took another sip of his drink. “Hey, uh, thanks for the book, by the way,” he stammered. “I read it once already, and I do feel a little more… prepared… I guess.”

“No problem,” Jane replied warmly.

Natasha, who had a feeling that the conversation was about to turn to how she and Clint were going to deal with parenthood, decided it was time for a less stressful topic. “So Jane,” she began, choosing the most entertaining thing she could think of, “you’ve met Agent Coulson, am I right? Have you ever heard about the time Barton talked him into helping with a practical joke without telling him who they were pranking?”

* * *

As Captain Rogers reached the top of the stairs, he could hear voices coming from the living room just down the hall. There was a roar of laughter, which included Thor’s unmistakable booming guffaw.

“That’s not the worst of it,” Romanoff managed, laughing so hard that she was on the verge of tears.

Steve stepped into the room just as Clint composed himself enough to finish the story they were telling. “So then Coulson looks at him… and says…” He paused to choke back more laughter. “He says, ‘Uh, sir, there’s something on your eye patch.’ And I was sure he’d kill him then and there!” The last sentence was almost drowned out by another round of laughter.

“You really did that?” Jane giggled.

“It’s all true, I swear,” Barton vowed, wincing a little as he tried to slow his breathing. It felt good to laugh for once, yet his still-healing lung and ribs told him otherwise.

“And you’re still alive to tell the tale,” Tony marveled.

“Clint didn’t even get in trouble,” Natasha said with just a hint of envy. He always seemed to get lucky like that. “Fury always suspected he had a hand in it, but there was no proof.”

Thor looked up to see Steve standing in the doorway. “Captain Rogers,” he said, still grinning. “Come, join us!”

Everyone else in the room echoed a greeting, and Steve smiled and took a seat. “It’s nice,” the captain said, “to hear laughter around here again.”

“It’s not as though we always sat around telling jokes in the past,” Natasha said.

“I know,” he brushed her off, “I’m not saying that. It’s just… team morale kind of hit an all-time low for a while there.” Everyone nodded wordlessly.

“You think that was bad?” Tony quipped. “Just wait until we have a newborn on our hands and Romanoff here has gone days without sleep.”

This elicited a chuckle or smile from everyone except Natasha, who looked annoyed, and Clint, who seemed a little nervous.

“I may be pregnant,” the Black Widow growled, “but I can still kill you, Stark.”

Clint smiled at this response. She might come to depend on him more on an emotional level now, but Natasha Romanoff would never be the damsel in distress. And that was just fine as far as Barton was concerned. She glanced over at him and caught him smiling. She returned it with just a tiny curve of her lips that most others would not have noticed.

“You’re the one who invited us to stay here,” Clint said, turning to Tony again.

“You know, you’re right,” Stark offered. “I take it back. Honestly. I’m sure you’ll have lots of help with the baby. And if you need me, I’ll just… move back to Malibu,” he teased.

* * *

Neither Clint nor Natasha found it easy adjusting to a new routine that no longer involved training for and going on SHIELD missions. Doctor Kirby had passed physical therapy duty on to someone else and only came to check in with his patient about once a week. Clint worked at his therapy and strength training with almost obsessive dedication. He didn’t want to feel like a cripple any longer than necessary. And he was starting to think that if he couldn’t get out of Avengers Tower soon—on his own two feet—he might lose his mind.

After visiting with the doctor one morning, he hobbled into the living room on the common floor, still on his crutches. He saw Romanoff and Banner sitting on the far side of the room, playing chess.

“Check,” Natasha announced confidently. Bruce frowned, but looked up to see who had stepped off the elevator before he could further contemplate his next move.

Once he had both of his friends’ attention, Clint smiled and held up his crutches to walk toward them on his own. He seemed slightly unsteady, but he managed it successfully nevertheless.

“So Lee gave you the okay, then?” Bruce asked.

Clint nodded. “Just saw him.” He stopped about halfway across the room, leaning his crutches against the back of the sofa.

“Congratulations,” Bruce said. “I know you’ve been working hard for this.”

At first Natasha looked pleased too, but when she finally spoke, the first thing she said was, “You saw the doctor this morning? I thought you were just going to therapy.” Her tone indicated that she would have come along if she had known this was something important.

Clint shrugged. “It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to be there for every appointment.”

“Oh,” she countered with feigned relief, “don’t I?” But Clint heard the sarcasm in her voice and knew immediately that he had said the wrong thing. He wanted to be there for all of her doctor appointments. Nat probably felt a little smothered at times, but she brought him along every time for his sake. He hadn’t really considered that she might feel just as strongly about being there for him in his recovery. It was hard to compare a baby to a bum knee, but it was the principle of the matter, he supposed.

“I just…” Clint began, “maybe I wanted this to be a surprise.” He held up his crutches again to emphasize his accomplishment. Why couldn’t she just be happy for him? She had to turn every little thing into an argument these days. Clint wasn’t sure if it was pregnancy-related or if perhaps this was how their relationship would always be.

“No, I get it,” Natasha said, better hiding her disappointment at being left out of the loop. She was fully aware of her mood swings, and she was doing her best to keep herself in check instead of taking it out on Clint. “It’s _your_ knee. I don’t have to know all the details.” She didn’t need to know, but she had expected it nonetheless. Perhaps that was unfair, she thought. Maybe she needed to say what she expected from Barton instead of making him attempt to read her mind.

But he used to be able to do that. When their relationship had been purely (or at least more) professional, he had always known what to do—how much to tell her and how much to keep to himself. But everything was different now. She and Clint were still partners, but the exact nature of that relationship seemed so unclear. In the past year or so, they had switched from colleagues to lovers and back again so often that it was impossible to keep track. In the end, Nat had to think that they must be stuck somewhere in between, in some kind of lovers’ limbo. Was there such a relationship?

She didn’t voice any of her confusion and frustration, but Clint was aware of it all—if only because he often felt it himself. As much as he wanted them to be a proper couple, it was hard to change. They had spent so long walking the line between professional and intimate that they were both afraid to cross it.

Barton took a step back, suddenly desperate for a moment of solitude. He could see things better from a distance, and trapped in this tower, he was far too close to everything and everyone. “I—I’ve gotta go,” he announced, turning to limp back to the elevator.

“You just got here,” Bruce protested, clearly more than a little confused by the awkward tension he felt settling between his friends.

“I know,” Clint mumbled as he pushed the button. The doors opened, and he stepped into the elevator. “I just… have to get out of here.”

“Clint…” Nat called, though she didn’t really expect him to come back.

“I’m just going for a walk,” he told her, in an overly casual tone. “I need some fresh air. Don’t worry about me. Just… do your own thing, and I’ll do mine. We’re good at that, aren’t we?” And then the door closed between them.

* * *

Within half an hour, Natasha caught up with Clint in a familiar part of Central Park. It was a beautiful early summer day, warm and sunny, so he was wearing a light jacket and sunglasses. Clint had wandered around the park until he was too tired to walk anymore. Now he was sitting on a bench, leaning back with his arms spread across the back of the bench and his head tilted up toward the sky. It almost looked as if he had fallen asleep. But Nat had a feeling he knew she was approaching, whether or not his eyes were closed.

Sure enough, when she was within a few yards, he lifted his head, acknowledging her presence. “What took you so long?”

“I had to finish beating Bruce at chess,” she said, stopping where she stood.

Clint smirked. Then he asked, “How do you always know where to find me?” It was actually a rhetorical question. It was probably not so easy to explain. His theory involved Natasha’s specialized training and the long history between the two. Or maybe he was just getting too predictable.

“I must have lost my touch for a few weeks there,” she commented, and Clint suddenly felt a bit guilty for reminding her of her desperate search for him while he was in captivity. She perched on the far end of the bench, silent for a moment. “Why did you run off like that?” she asked at last.

“I’m actually physically incapable of _running_ anywhere,” her partner pointed out.

“Just answer the question, Barton.”

Clint turned his head toward her and took off his sunglasses to look her in the eye. “I…” He sighed. “I don’t know. For one thing, I was going crazy trapped in that tower.”

Nat smiled a little. She understood where he was coming from. But her expression became serious once again, and she shook her head slightly. “It’s more than that,” she insisted.

He shrugged, though not because he was unsure. They both knew she was right. He just didn’t know how to put it into words. “It’s a lot more than that,” he admitted. “And yet… it’s nothing—nothing in particular.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t make any sense. I guess I’m still adjusting to… well, everything.”

“We both are,” Natasha said.

Clint put his sunglasses back on and stood gingerly but without help. Natasha automatically fell into stride beside him as they began to stroll through the park. They walked in silence for a time. Barton had come out here for some peace and quiet, and his partner was very conscious of that fact. But they really did need to talk, and it seemed she would have to go first.

“What you said about doing our own thing…”

“Yeah?” Barton asked without looking at her.

“Clint, how long can we keep that up? It worked when we were nothing more than SHIELD partners. We sometimes went on missions independently, and we never needed to share the details with each other. But when it came time to work together, we knew how to communicate.”

Clint nodded but said nothing.

Natasha continued, “Maybe we need to think of this as a mission, one that we have to work on together.”

Clint stopped walking, and she turned to face him. “And what exactly is this mission?” he asked. “Raising a baby? Or something beyond that—a relationship? To what extent are we still partners, Natasha? That’s all I want to know.”

“We’re partners in everything now, Clint.”

“Everything? Do you mean that?”

Romanoff nodded.

“No more thinking only of ourselves, then,” he said. “We can’t keep putting distance between us, pretending life hasn’t changed. I know this isn’t what you wanted, but this is our life now. We both have to face that fact.”

Natasha sighed. “It still bothers you that at first I wanted to hide the pregnancy from you, to let life go on as if nothing had happened. It would have been easier for both of us, and you know it. There is a reason SHIELD agents don’t have children, Clint. We can never go back to doing what we did before. We won’t be able to focus solely on a mission—we’ll be too busy making sure that we both get home to our child. And I can’t even think what would happen if one of our enemies found out. Children are a _liability_ in our line of work.”

“Natasha…” Clint began, but he couldn’t really admonish her for saying it. She was right. Unless they cut all ties with this baby, they would spend the rest of their lives worrying about protecting him or her. As if what they did for a living wasn’t hard enough!

“But I also had selfish motives for _keeping_ this baby, Clint. I was thinking about my future… if not my career. It’s just… well, I thought you might be dead. It would have been easy enough to forget about what you would have wanted and do what was best for me. And it would have been hard to keep the baby if you really were gone, Clint. I would never have been able to forget you. Every time I looked at this child, I would have missed you. And I thought that would be unbearable, and I thought I could just put all that emotion away. By giving the baby away.” There were tears in her eyes now. “But then… at some point while you were gone, I realized that I couldn’t do that. I finally had to admit that I didn’t want to forget you, Clint, or how I feel about you.”

Clint reached out and took both of Natasha’s hands in his, but he let her continue with what she had to say.

“When I thought I had lost you,” she said, “I realized that this might be the only piece of you I had left—a baby girl with your eyes or a little boy with your smile. I thought this might be the last and best gift you ever gave me, and I couldn’t part with that. And maybe that was the selfish thing to do after all. Because this baby is going to be brought up by a mother with lots of enemies and no idea what she’s doing. Because you _did_ come back, and now your life has changed, too, because of _my_ decision. But it _was_ my decision, Clint. I didn’t make it just for you.”

He could only stare at her, speechless. The tears had slipped from her eyes, tracing down her cheeks, and he thought he truly understood for the first time just how much she loved him. He could have told her that she had made the right decision for the right reasons. He could have told her that everything was going to be alright because he would never let her down. Later he would wonder if he should have said these things. But all he could do now was reach out, pull her close, and hope that she already knew everything he couldn’t tell her.

* * *

Clint bolted upright with a small cry, looking around as if searching the darkness for whatever demons had chased him into consciousness. The room was silent and still, dimly lit by moonlight. A cool breeze slipped through the slightly open window, ruffled Clint’s hair and chilled his sweaty brow. He shuddered a little as reality slowly replaced his nightmare.

A whisper came from the darkness beside him. “Clint?” It was Natasha’s voice, sounding somewhat groggy from being startled awake. He heard her—at least, somewhere in the back of his mind, the voice registered as hers—but he didn’t respond.

In the dim light, she could make out his form just enough to see that he was staring straight ahead. She tried his name again but was answered only by the sound of his breathing, still abnormally shallow and quick.

_“Barton!”_ Finally, he turned his head.

“Nat,” he murmured, reaching out to place his hand on her shoulder, as if making sure she was really there. “I—I woke you. I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. It was just a dream, Clint.”

His hand dropped to his side. “But it wasn’t,” he said bluntly. He turned away and started to straighten the sheet that had somehow ended up twisted and tangled around him.

Natasha wasn’t certain how to respond. For a moment, she wondered if he had dreamt of Loki’s mind control or Oduamadi’s torture… or perhaps one of the dreams she sometimes had about someone trying to harm their baby. Whatever this was, it didn’t seem to be something she could help with. But she did what she always did after he woke from a nightmare. She reached out and took his hand, pulling him back down to lay beside her. He wrapped an arm around her and cradled her head against his shoulder. Closing his eyes, he exhaled slowly and focused on the reality of her body next to his.

He tried to go back to sleep, but his mind wouldn’t turn off now. After a while, he opened his eyes, staring up at the ceiling. He could tell from her breathing that Nat was still awake too.

“Natasha?”

“Hmm?”

“What are we doing?” he asked, still studying the ceiling as he spoke.

She understood his meaning but pretended not to. “Trying to sleep,” she grumbled.

Clint ignored her. “Are we really going to give up everything to be parents?”

“Being a SHIELD agent isn’t everything.” Even as she said it, Natasha realized that not so long ago, such a thought would never have crossed her mind.

“Yeah, well, it’s all we know.”

“Then we’ll learn. Isn’t that how it is for all new parents?”

“I guess so.” Clint was quiet for a minute, and Natasha thought he might go back to sleep. But then he whispered again, “Nat?”

“Yes, Clint?” she sighed.

“Do you want to raise the baby here? At Stark’s tower?”

“Well, it’s probably the safest place for the child of two SHIELD agents, even if it isn’t exactly a ‘normal’ home.” Natasha couldn’t help picturing how unusual such a childhood would be—growing up with the Avengers. But when you have two covert agents/assassins for parents who can expect normal?

“Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Clint said. He paused, but before Natasha could wonder if he was finally ready to sleep, he said, “Tony and I were talking about turning that guest bedroom in your living quarters into a nursery. You never use it anyway.”

Natasha rolled over so that she could look at him. “Are you saying I don’t have any friends?” she teased.

Clint just rolled his eyes. “Maybe I’m just saying most of your friends already live here. Look, Nat,” he insisted, “I just want to know what you’re thinking.”

“Actually… I was thinking by then it should be _our_ living quarters.”

This was clearly not the answer Barton had expected. “Are you asking me to move in?” he asked, turning to study her face in the dim light.

“Well, I think if we’re going to be parents, we should try to do it right. And I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject, but I do think that a child should grow up with both parents.”

“Neither of us had good examples of what a family should be like,” Clint agreed, “but I think it’s safe to say that between both of our childhoods, we know exactly what _not_ to do.”

Natasha smiled sadly. They had to be the most unlikely parents! “So you don’t mind? Moving in?” she asked.

“I’d be happy to… as long as you’re sure.”

She shrugged. “It’s not such a big change. I’ve been sleeping in your bed every night for the past few weeks anyway.”

“Yeah, well, I know you’ve only been doing this because I told you that I sleep better when you’re here.”

“Maybe I sleep better too…”

He didn’t reply. What else was there to say? After he could tell from her slow, rhythmic breathing that Natasha was asleep again, Clint finally closed his eyes.


	16. Chapter 16

As life at Avengers Tower began to return to normal, members of the team came and went, busy with their own adventures. Hawkeye and Black Widow did their best to not to feel envy when Agent Hill showed up to enlist Captain America’s help with a mission or when Iron Man left to help Rhodey with some matter of national defense.

Clint was particularly anxious to return to work. He found plenty of plenty of ways to distract himself when he wasn’t busy with physical therapy and strength training. He practiced archery a little more than his doctors would have liked, but at least no one stopped him. On the other hand, Natasha and Pepper were quick to scold both Clint and Tony whenever they tried to spend an entire day playing video games. “Oh, come on,” Stark would plead, pointing to Barton’s leg, “he’s practically crippled. What else is he supposed to do?” But that argument had lost its merit about the time Clint had started walking without crutches.

Meanwhile, Natasha was discovering maternal instincts she didn’t know she had. With Barton moving in and starting work on a nursery, she spent a lot of her spare time cleaning, organizing, and adding softness to her normally Spartan living quarters. She wanted Clint to feel at home, and she wanted to make sure everything would be ready when the baby came. Clint told her that they had months to prepare and that it was a little too early to start “nesting,” but he was careful not to dissuade her. To be honest, he was happy to see her becoming a little more comfortable with the idea of motherhood.

Of course, that didn’t mean that Romanoff was overly _happy_ about being pregnant. She wasn’t the type to complain, but it was obvious to her partner that she was uncomfortable with many of the changes she was going through. Long before anyone else could see the pregnancy showing, she became very self-conscious about the way her waist was beginning to swell. Clint dreaded the day when she wouldn’t be able to sheath a blade in her boot anymore because she couldn’t reach her own ankles.

* * *

It had been over two months since Clint had escaped from Oduamadi, and yet the experience still haunted him. He regularly woke in the middle of the night and couldn’t (or wouldn’t) go back to sleep. Often Natasha, being a light sleeper, woke up too and did her best to soothe him back to sleep. Sometimes he managed not to wake her and instead got up to walk it off. This time, it was just after 4 AM when he woke, and he lay quietly for a long time. Once he was convinced that Natasha was still asleep, he slipped carefully out of bed, pulled on a sweatshirt, and limped down the hall.

Clint had no idea where to go, but he was too restless to stay in bed. Natasha had a hard enough time getting a good night’s sleep lately without being disturbed by his nightmares on a regular basis. He wandered into the elevator and, for a moment, considered going to his floor to work out his anxiety on a few archery targets. But the range was a relatively small, windowless space, and at this moment, Clint didn’t want to feel so enclosed. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he imagined that being in a room at all similar to that cell might just trigger a panic attack.

He stepped off the elevator into the team’s lounge—a large, open room with a whole wall of windows. The moon was nearly full, casting a bright light on the city stretching out into the distance. Clint went to the edge of the balcony to lean against the railing. He saw city lights far below, and the major streets and highways were streams of tiny red and white lights.

Clint wasn’t normally fond of the bustling city. It was too crowded, too loud. But from this distance, far above the cacophony of city sounds, he found it beautiful and peaceful. He finally felt as though he could relax and think. For too long he had felt stifled by his injuries, smothered by the memories of his captivity. And as he continued to heal physically, the emotional wounds seemed more prominent. He took a deep breath. “You’ve gotta pull yourself together,” he told himself, “or you’ll be no good to them.”

In the stillness behind him, Clint heard the elevator door open and close, even over the rush of the wind in his ears. It wasn’t even five o’clock yet; he had no idea who would be wandering around the tower at this hour. He peered into the dark room behind him, expecting to see Natasha step into the moonlight. His heart sank at the thought that she might have awoken to find herself alone in the middle of the night… again.

But the dark form moving in the shadows was not small enough to be the Black Widow. Whoever it was suddenly seemed to notice the silhouette on the balcony and moved toward the door. It was Steve Rogers who stepped outside then. The silvery moonlight washed out his hair and cast strange shadows across his face, made him look much older than he was… or maybe closer to his true age. “Barton?” he asked in confusion. “What are you doing up here? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I was on a mission. Just got back.” Steve came closer and stood at the balcony railing beside his friend.

Clint nodded. “How’d it go? I mean, if they call you in, it’s usually something big.”

Steve shook his head. “Nah, it was pretty routine.” Clint couldn’t tell whether this was true or the Captain was just trying not to upset him by telling him all about the excitement he was missing out on. “Oh, but Agents Farrell and Morse said to say hi to you.” Clint nodded again in acknowledgement, but Steve could tell that he was only half listening.

“You really miss it, don’t you?”

Hawkeye shrugged. “Working with SHIELD, I get to help people… sometimes even save the world. I just feel a little useless right now, I guess.”

“You’ll get back out there eventually. In the meantime, you should try to enjoy the break. Think of it as a well-earned vacation.”

“That’d be easier if it were voluntary. Besides, a proper vacation would involve a little more sun and sand… and a little _less_ physical therapy.”

Steve chuckled. After a moment of silence, he finally said, “I don’t think missing out on work was really on your mind until I showed up. So what’s going on? Why are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”

Clint didn’t take his eyes off the skyline. “Couldn’t sleep,” he mumbled.

“Yeah, I gathered that,” Steve said with a wry smile. “Are you worried about Natasha and the baby?”

“No,” Barton said quietly, “they’re both fine. In fact, lately Nat’s been dealing with all of that much better than I expected.”

“Thinking ahead to what happens when you’re both ready to go to work again?”

“I don’t know. It’s easy enough to forget about that while we’re both grounded from missions.” He sighed, and finally supplied an answer to his friend’s question. “I just can’t stop thinking about Oduamadi. I know I shouldn’t focus on all of that, but I can’t help it. I mean… someday Nat and I _will_ be going on missions again. And what happened in Lagos—what if that happens again? I don’t know what scares me more: the thought that Fury had no idea he was sending me into a trap or the possibility that he did know and just didn’t care.”

Rogers shook his head. “You’ve been listening to Stark too much,” he chided. “I know he likes to spin his conspiracy theories, but I don’t think he gives Director Fury enough credit in this case. He would never have deliberately allowed you to be captured.”

Clint had to agree. “Only if it was important,” he said, “and I’ll be the first to tell you that Oduamadi isn’t worth that much trouble.” He paused for a moment, then added, “But he thought _I_ was. What did it take for him to make sure I’d be in Lagos that day? I mean, I can’t ignore how _wrong_ we were about that warehouse. I keep wondering if—”

“He had a man on the inside,” Steve finished the speculation with a fact. “I’m not sure Fury wants me to tell you any of this,” he continued, “but I think you need to know. There was a traitor in our midst. It was a SHIELD agent who fed us the false intel about that warehouse in Lagos. He made sure you found out about the mission, knew you’d insist on going yourself.”

“Who was it?” Barton asked, his voice unnaturally even. He was clearly trying hard to keep his emotions in check right now.

“SHIELD has a lot of agents. You may never have met him.”

“Just tell me.”

“Paul Allen,” Rogers said at last. Clint squeezed his eyes shut and tried to quell the anger that rose within him. Steve asked, “You know him?”

Clint opened his eyes, gazing out at the horizon again. “Not well,” he said softly. He sighed. “Well enough to trust him, though.” After a moment, he asked, “Where is he now?”

“We don’t know,” Steve admitted. “He went AWOL just after we captured Oduamadi.”

“He was afraid he would be made.”

“Rightly so,” Rogers agreed. “Considering how long he’d been on Oduamadi’s payroll, the general was awfully quick to turn on him. I guess he thought giving us a traitor might help him out. But it won’t do him any good. His fate isn’t in SHIELD’s hands.”

“What do you mean?”

Suddenly another voice chimed in from the doorway behind them. “They’re sending him back to Nigeria, aren’t they?” Natasha asked. Her fiery hair was unmistakable, even in the dim light. She was wearing a nightgown short enough to show off her knees and loose enough to hide the way her belly was just beginning to grow.

While Clint wondered how long she had been listening in, Steve confirmed what she had guessed about Joseph Oduamadi. “The people he terrorized back in Africa get to decide his fate,” he said. “Only seems fair.”

Nat walked over to join them. “Director Fury wouldn’t allow it if he didn’t believe they will execute him. We can’t risk him being set free.”

“Well, even over there, SHIELD will guard him closely until they’ve had their ‘trial,’ don’t worry about that,” Steve promised. No one spoke for a minute, then the captain stepped away from the rail and said, “Well, I’ve been up all night. I think I’ll try to get a few hours of sleep.”

“Good night,” Natasha said as Steve moved toward the door.

“Captain,” Clint called before he got too far, “thanks. For telling me all of that.” Steve just nodded before disappearing inside the tower.

Natasha stepped closer to Clint, leaning sideways against the railing next to him. He bent forward, resting on his elbows, looking down at the city and turning his head slightly to hide the smile that crossed his lips as he noticed her subconsciously moving her free hand to rest on her stomach.

“You know,” she said eventually, “you might want to consider trying to get more sleep before the baby comes. Because after that…”

Clint chuckled. He was certainly not looking forward to more sleep deprivation. He had a feeling that having an infant would make the small amount of sleep he got back in Oduamadi’s cell seem generous. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely. “I just… had another nightmare. Had to stretch my legs a bit, get some fresh air.”

The Black Widow looked at him gravely. “It’s going to take more than that, Clint,” she admonished him. “You need to get past this.”

“I know,” Clint sighed. He restlessly ran his fingers through his hair. “There’s just one thing I think I need to do,” he said, “before I can put this behind me.” He looked up at Natasha. “I have to face him while I still have the chance, but… I don’t think I can do it alone.”

“Two things,” Natasha said. Before he could voice his confusion, she told him, “You should see him, but there is someone else who has asked to see you first.”

* * *

One day, months after he had been captured, Joseph Oduamadi was taken from his prison cell, led to an interrogation room, and pushed into a chair. His handcuffs were secured to a ring on the metal table before him. Then, with no explanation, he was left alone for at least five minutes. When the door opened at last, he did not expect to see Clint Barton walking into the room, especially not under his own power. But that is precisely what he saw. Barton no longer needed crutches or a brace on his knee, but he still limped slightly as he made his way to the other side of the table. He stopped and stood silently, studying his former captor. Clint decided that he saw a weary, broken man, though Oduamadi mustered all of his determination and looked back at him defiantly.

“Well, if it isn’t my old friend, Agent Barton, come to visit at last!” the prisoner sneered. “You look surprisingly well. They told me you had survived, but I must say I had my doubts.”

“It would take more than the likes of you…” Clint growled bitterly. Then he added in a more conversational tone, “So how have you been enjoying your stay with SHIELD? Comfortable enough?”

Oduamadi glared at him. Normal rules for the treatment of prisoners didn’t exactly apply to SHIELD, and he had been denied every little luxury—like generous portions of food, a soft bed, even a window. Too many of the guards knew how this man had treated one of their own. Some of them knew Barton personally. If he had gone a month without seeing the light of day, why should Oduamadi get as much?

Clint knew all of this; nevertheless, Oduamadi again did his best to hide his misery. “You cannot intimidate me,” he said.

“Oh, I’m not here for that. Actually, I think in a way, I owe you my thanks. A lot happened while I was with you, a lot that might not have happened otherwise. But that’s a long story,” he added. “Kind of personal. Honestly, I’d tell you all the details, but... _I don’t like you_.” He whispered the last few words as if he was revealing a secret. Then he continued, “No, I really just came to bring you a message. But before I get to that, there is someone who would like to meet you.”

Clint turned to the door. After a moment, it opened, and Natasha stepped into the room. She had been standing on the other side of the one-way mirror, waiting for her cue. She wore a loose shirt but made sure the growing baby bump was evident. She wasn’t normally comfortable showing it off, but she wanted Oduamadi to see the future Clint still had ahead of him. She wanted him to know how badly he had failed to destroy Barton… and to regret that he had ever crossed an agent of SHIELD (and an Avenger, no less).

Oduamadi looked her over and smiled slyly. He was certain he knew who she was. “Natasha, I presume?” The Black Widow had difficulty hiding her surprise. Clint had never revealed that he had told his captor about her. But she was even more surprised by Barton’s reaction.

He leaned forward, bringing a fist down on the table in front of Oduamadi. “How do you know her name?” he demanded. Clearly Clint was just as shocked—and in addition angered—by Oduamadi’s revelation.

The prisoner did not answer directly, instead speaking to Natasha. “There were many subjects he would not discuss during our… _conversations_. You were, I think, the one he most wanted to keep private. But given enough time under the right _conditions_ , I have learned that any man will eventually cry out for the woman he loves… if only in his sleep.” What really bothered Natasha was the strange, taunting way in which he said the words “conversations” and “conditions,” not even trying to hide the fact that what he really meant was “interrogation” and “torture.”

With a quick glance, she saw that Clint was staring into the distance, his eyes troubled. The whole reason for this visit had been to give him some sort of closure before Oduamadi was sent away to face judgement in Africa. It was supposed to help him to see his former captor as a prisoner. But at this moment, despite his circumstances, Oduamadi was winning.

The warlord had shrewdly clung to a tiny piece of information that he knew, if used properly, had the potential to break Barton all over again. Had Romanoff been an objective observer, she might have approved, at least at one time. Oduamadi was using Clint’s feelings against him, and this only confirmed her long-held belief that love was a weakness that could be too easily exploited.

But maybe she had changed more than she realized, or maybe it was different because she knew that she was the cause of that weakness in her partner. Whatever the case, Natasha didn’t think about what she did next. She didn’t analyze the situation as she normally would have. And so she didn’t hit Oduamadi because it was the logical reaction to what he had said. In fact, she would later wonder if the provocation had been his words and the way they affected Clint, or if it was nothing more than that spiteful look in his eyes. Or maybe from the moment she had agreed to come with Clint today, she had subconsciously intended to hit this man for what he had done to the father of her child. All she knew at that moment was a flash of anger, and suddenly she had struck the man hard enough to turn his head to the side.

Clint flinched as if he was the one who had been slapped. Coming back to his senses, he blinked and looked over at Natasha, surprised by her impulsive reaction. With that one act, she had proven that she would not be used against anyone. She and Clint were a team. Neither of them could ever be weaker because of the other. Instead, they drew strength and confidence from each other. Clint was especially grateful for that right now.

He took a deep breath and composed himself while Oduamadi took a moment to gather his own wits and then glare at Romanoff. Clearing his throat to make sure he had the prisoner’s attention, Barton pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “Keep it up and I might forget to give you this,” he warned, laying the letter on the table just out of Oduamadi’s reach.

“What is that? Who is it from?”

Natasha answered this time. “It’s from Onolara.”

“From what I read—” Clint began.

Oduamadi clenched his fists, unable to hide his anger. “How dare you…” he growled.

“We have to monitor all correspondence,” Romanoff pointed out matter-of-factly.

“Anyway,” Barton continued, “it’s basically goodbye. After all, you will _never_ see her again.” There was not a hint of empathy in his voice. He believed with all of his heart that Joseph Oduamadi could never deserve a woman like Lara.

“Do I get to read it?” Oduamadi inquired.

“Do you _want_ to read it?” Clint wondered. “After what she did?” He was answered only by a look of utter bewilderment from the prisoner.

“No one told him,” Natasha observed.

Oduamadi did not ask what it was he had not been told. Perhaps he thought it was a trick, or maybe he just didn’t want to look weak by showing too much emotion. But it didn’t take a well-trained agent to judge that he _was_ curious.

Clint folded his arms across his chest. “Well, someone has to tell him. She wrote that letter under the assumption that he knows by now.”

Finally, Oduamadi gave in. “What is it?” he snapped. He tried to jump to his feet in anger, but the handcuffs clanged loudly against the table and he found he could not even stand to his full height. He dropped reluctantly back into his seat.

Barton looked coldly into the man’s eyes. If he might have had any qualms about saying it, they had vanished the moment Oduamadi tried to use his feelings for Natasha against him. (And, of course, torturing and nearly killing him hadn’t helped the man gain any sympathy either.) “She betrayed you, Joseph,” he declared at last. “The day I escaped, she came to my cell while you were asleep. She gave me food and water, cleaned my wounds…”

Oduamadi was shaking his head.

“You don’t believe me?” Clint asked. “Does that not sound like something your wife would do?”

“She is a gentle soul, perhaps too much so. If she did what you say, it was because she pitied you, nothing more.”

“She pitied _you_!” Clint responded. “I’ll never understand why, but she must have loved you once. But I think she saw how black your heart had become and tried to undo the damage you had done. She explains it all in that letter.”

“You lie!” Oduamadi bellowed. “She knows what I did to you was for our children. I was avenging our sons!”

Barton stood his ground, but his voice was soft as he said, “She didn’t want you to avenge anyone. I didn’t mean for them to die. Lara knew that. She just wanted to stop the cycle of suffering and death. And she did. She did what neither you nor I could do. I hope that knowledge comforts her.”

“You think she made such a difference by feeding you?” Oduamadi asked skeptically.

Clint said nothing at first. He glanced over at Natasha and took a tiny step away from the table, letting her know he was ready to leave. As she turned and moved toward the door, Clint pulled something else from his pocket but kept it hidden in his palm. “Haven’t you asked yourself how I got out of my cell that day?” he asked. His former captor did not reply, but they both knew the answer. A day hadn’t gone by that Oduamadi hadn’t puzzled over that detail of Barton’s escape.

After a meaningful pause, Clint reached out and pushed the letter toward Oduamadi. As he drew his hand back, he dropped a hairpin on top of the paper. The room was so silent for a moment that you could have heard that pin hit the floor.

“Keep it,” Clint said almost inaudibly, “to remember her by.” Without another word, he turned and followed Natasha out of the room. Armed guards were already moving in as the couple left. Joseph Oduamadi wouldn’t be allowed to keep the hairpin. He would read the letter many times, though, on his flight to Africa. And he would, indeed, _never_ see his wife again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost done... :D


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not 100% happy with this chapter, but I'm posting it anyway. It's about time I just finish this story! Please let me know what you think.

Clint and Natasha did not talk much about their meeting with Joseph Oduamadi, but Nat could tell almost immediately that it had made a difference for Clint. It seemed as though a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders. In the following days, he seemed more like himself than he had in a long time—less moody brooding, more cheerful humor.

No doubt, it helped that he was sleeping through the night much more. In that, Natasha was beginning to envy him. The further into the pregnancy she got, the more difficulty she had sleeping. She found herself increasingly uncomfortable and knew it would only get worse as the due date approached. She grumbled about it a fair bit, but she wasn’t really unhappy. Deep down, she found she was getting excited about having a baby. Terrified and nervous, but also excited.

The rest of the team felt the same way. One day about a month until the baby was due, Clint and Natasha walked into the team lounge to find Tony organizing a betting pool. “Boy or girl?” he was asking Thor.

“I believe… it will be a boy,” the Asgardian said, though he sounded unsure.

“And what day and time should I put you down for? She’s due on the eleventh, remember.”

Clint looked at Nat, raising his eyebrows in amusement. “Tony!” he said, “What the hell?”

Tony glanced over in concern but then saw that the expectant parents were chuckling. “Hey, the team wanted to feel involved,” he explained.

“So… a betting pool?” Natasha laughed. Tony just shrugged.

“The thirteenth,” Thor said suddenly. “Let’s say four in the morning.”

“Over a day late?” Clint said. “Oh, no! That can’t happen.” He sat on the couch across from Thor.

Natasha sat beside him. “What? You think I can’t handle that?” she asked.

“I think  _ I _ can’t handle it,” he answered with a grin.

“So, Barton? You want in on the pool?” Tony grinned mischievously as he sat in a nearby armchair.

Clint looked over at Natasha, putting a hand gently on her belly. He shook his head and smiled. “No,” he said, “I don’t care if it’s a girl or a boy. And I certainly hope we don’t have to wait too long, but I think I have to expect the unexpected now that I’m a father.” The others smiled.

“Early or late or right on time,” Natasha agreed, “we just want the baby to be healthy.”

* * *

A month later, the Black Widow had a different opinion, however. “I don’t care what I said about being able to go past my due date,” she declared one night as she was getting ready for bed. “I want this baby out.”

Clint laughed out loud. “I get it,” he said before she could turn her anger on him, “but we really don’t get a say in it. Besides, we’re still just about a day away from the due date.”

“We’ve taken all the classes,” Nat continued. “I know more about childbirth than I  _ ever _ wanted to know. The nursery is ready. And here I am still looking like a whale.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “You don’t look like a whale,” he assured her as she slipped under the covers beside him. “You look amazing. Everyone agrees it’s just as though you put a volleyball under your shirt. There’s nothing whale-like about you.”

Natasha smiled and kissed him. “Well, you have to say that so I won’t kick you out of bed.”

* * *

After almost an hour of laying in bed while staring at the clock and counting seconds, Natasha reached over and shook Barton awake. “Clint,” she said. He groaned and tried to roll over. “Clint, I think it’s time.”

“What time is it?” he asked groggily.

“It’s 3 AM, but that’s not what I mean. I think it’s time to have this baby.”

Clint was instantly awake. “What? Like right now?”

“I’m having contractions.”

“You’ve had those before.”

“I think they’re for real this time.”

Clint nodded. “Okay, don’t panic,” he said, though Natasha didn’t seem to be panicking at all. “We’ll just head to the medical floor.” Clint started to move but forgot to actually get up first, and as a result he tumbled straight to the floor. He jumped up quickly, hoping Natasha hadn’t seen.

She was sitting on the other side of the bed, slipping into her robe. “JARVIS,” she said evenly, “please let the on-call doctor know we’re coming down to the medical floor.”

“Of course,” the polite British voice replied. “Would you like me to wake the rest of the team?”

“Not yet. We’ll let you know when.”

Clint was looking around, trying to decide what he should be doing. Shouldn’t he be doing  _ something _ ? Then he noticed that Nat was already at the door, waiting for him. “Right,” he said, stepping into his slippers. “Let’s go.”

As they walked out of the room, Natasha couldn’t help but laugh at how nervous her partner was. “Clint, calm down,” she told him coolly. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

Tony had spared no expense in making sure the Avengers Tower medical center was prepared for labor and delivery (as opposed to the usual patching of battle wounds). By the time the expectant parents had arrived on the proper floor, the doctor and nurses were ready and waiting.

Once it was clear that labor really was underway, JARVIS informed the rest of the Avengers. By six o’clock, they were all gathered in the team lounge, waiting to hear news.

Pepper passed out plates of eggs and sausage. “It could be hours more,” she said to the room.

“So who has a shot at winning the pool?” Tony asked. “I think I’m out unless this goes on for about 24 hours more.

“I said noon today,” Bruce said hopefully.

Over the next five hours, members of the group came and went, but they were always prepared to be interrupted.

* * *

After what seemed like an eternity, Natasha’s pain and exhaustion were rewarded with a tiny cry. Clint cut the cord, and the baby was laid on Nat’s chest. She kissed the top of the infant’s head and smiled wearily up at Clint, who had tears in his eyes as he touched a tiny hand with one finger. “Look what we did,” she whispered in awe. It was one thing to know that you were bringing a new life into the world, but finally meeting that little person was something else entirely.

* * *

At almost eleven, Steve, Thor, and Tony were sitting in the lounge again playing cards while Bruce and Pepper conversed. Suddenly Clint stepped off the elevator. Everyone looked up expectantly.

“She just had the baby a little while ago. Both are doing great,” he told them with a grin. “Who had money on a girl?”

Pepper squealed with delight and gave Clint a hug. The other four congratulated him and shook his hand. “I didn’t really do much. Nat was amazing,” he said with admiration in his voice. “Anyway, we’ve had our chance to admire her for a bit, and we’d like you all to meet her now.”

Once on the medical floor, Clint led the team to Natasha’s door and knocked softly. He stuck his head in the door and said, “They’re here.” He must have gotten the signal to bring them in because he pushed the door open and motioned for the others to follow him.

The other five filed in and stood around the bed while Clint moved to sit in a chair at Natasha’s side, where he’d likely spent most of the last 6-7 hours. Nat was sitting up with a tiny swaddled baby in her arms. “Hello, everyone,” she said with a smile. “We’d like you to meet Larissa Edith Barton.”

“She’s  _ beautiful _ !” Pepper exclaimed, and the others nodded in agreement. Natasha lifted the baby toward her, and Pepper gently scooped her into her arms.

Clint watched her admiring Larissa as he put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. “We were actually hoping you and Tony would be her godparents,” he said with a questioning tone.

Pepper grinned at Tony, who said, “We’d be honored.”

Clint pulled him into a quick hug. As he stepped back a moment later, he addressed the group at large. “I just want to thank you guys again,” he said, “for not giving up on me.” He looked down at his daughter, his eyes wet with unshed tears. “If not for all of you, I would never have met her.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter is going to be a preview of sorts. I have plans for a sequel and one scene is mostly formed inside my head, so I'll write that up just to give you a taste of what's to come... ;)


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